


Offerings of Gristle and Bone

by OriginalCeenote



Category: X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Body Horror, Frankenstein - Freeform, I sympathize with Sabertooth and I always have, M/M, Mental Abuse, Mentions of grave robbing, Nudity, Reanimation, Supporting Character Deaths, Telepathic Manipulation and Mind Control, The Bride - Freeform, inspired by Vonda McIntyre and Mary Shelley, tons of canon minor characters if you can recognize them all
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-23
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2018-02-18 13:50:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 57,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2350673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OriginalCeenote/pseuds/OriginalCeenote
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nathaniel Essex is careless with his toys. When his first experiment, Victor, disappoints him, he goes back to the drawing board. An AU LoMy tale from my sick and twisted little mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own the X-Men fandom or these characters. I make no money for writing this little trifle, nor any claims to sanity.

Author’s Note: Don’t even ask me to explain why the heck I returned to this pairing after being away from it for at least… sheesh. Two years? Even worse, this is my tapestry syndrome recurring with a vengeance, when I have a crap-ton of older stories that are screaming for updates on my hard drive. I finish maybe an average of three stories a year, usually not during the same year that they are started.

And, so help me, this almost became a RoLo or Ororo/Emma fic. It may STILL do that at some point. Heaven help you all. Happy reading and creating.

 

*

He hummed along with the scratchy melodies floating through the laboratory from his Victrola, adjusting his head lamp. His scalpel cut cleanly through the tendon, and he probed the muscle with his gloved fingers. He worked efficiently, irrigating the exposed bones with sterile water. He probed the nerves, testing the reflexes of the phalanges, which spasmed obediently. Good. Very good. His lean body cast a long, flickering shadow over the back wall of the suite, and he sweated copiously beneath his gray surgical gown.

His latest project lay shrouded in a sterile blue drape. Intravenous bags of saline and an infusion pouch of fresh blood hung from a weighted pole, a technique the local physicians weren’t familiar with yet, a practice that would no doubt have him arrested as a charlatan. Nathaniel Essex, or Doctor Essex, as he preferred, had grown accustomed to the barbs and gossip from the village elite, and even from his own colleagues.

Smug, complacent bastards, every one of them. He contemplated how content they were to limit themselves, to think so small, when they might be gods. Men who practiced medicine held Prometheus’ spark in their hands, yet they cowered in the dark, afraid to venture out.

He nodded to his assistant, a stunted, homely man of middle years named Modok, who dragged his palsied leg in a stumbling gait. He was thick-featured and scarred, but intelligence shone in his protuberant brown eyes. He had only to nod at him, and the correct instrument found itself pressed into his palm. Modok lined up the proffered sponges and dressings on a metal tray and neatly threaded sutures, preparing them for each closure of flesh. Slowly but surely, they made progress. Great progress, indeed.

“Time to close,” Essex murmured. Modok nodded eagerly and handed him the suction yankauer. Essex hummed contentedly to his music as long draughts of diluted blood were evacuated from the site, spiraling through the clear tubing. The exposed hand and forearm were creamy and pale, owning a slightly bluish cast in the operative lamp’s stark light. There was something so elegant and graceful about it; Essex ran a fingertip fondly over the tapering limb. “Exquisite,” he muttered.

“Master?” Modok inquired. Essex waved him off, breaking out of his reverie, and they resumed their work. He prepared the bovie tip and Modok flicked on the switch. The stench of burning bone and flesh soon filled the lab, but both men ignored it. Within a half hour, Essex was suturing the flaps of skin shut over the inner wrist in an immaculate row of stitches, almost sorry to mar the skin any further, but it couldn’t be helped.

Every scar told a story. Scars raised questions that Essex could ill afford. The village at the foot of the hill entertained themselves over port wine with the stories of those less unfortunate, or rather, misfortunate. Tongues wagged at the butcher’s and in the millinery shop of freshly overturned graves and open caskets. Once in a while, a young man would go missing, just as the intrigue and fear from the last episode died down to a dull roar. Afternoon teas were often interrupted by shrieks and wails of those who inconveniently discovered the “donors,” or what was left of them. Essex wasn’t a socialite, certainly hadn’t tried to be when his beloved wife had left the earth. He took solace in solitude and in his experiments in lieu of family, and the petty concerns of the locals didn’t faze Essex. Not in the least.

He took the lap sponge that Modok saturated in sterile water for him and swabbed away the yellow antiseptic stain from the skin. Essex uncoiled a length of gauze and dressed it, wrapping the limb as though he were preparing his subject for an Egyptian burial of old. He flicked slightly rheumy red eyes over the specimen jars lined up on his shelves and decided the comparison was appropriate. Essex thought of each treasure as a souvenir of a lesson learned. His wisdom came at the cost of failures that ranged from the amusing to the sublime and grotesque.

Speaking of which…

He heard a low grunting sound at the doorway, knowing that Victor finally gave in to the burning temptation to enter the lab, even though Essex had forbidden it. “Leave us,” he hissed without peering over his shoulder at his last creation. But Victor groaned again in a bid for his attention, and he set down his suturing needle and acknowledged him.

He was an abomination. His hulking form consumed all of the space in the doorway, and Essex regretted, not for the first time, that he’d made the creature so enormous. The faint light from the corridor made his sparse tufts of shaggy blond hair gleam. Essex sighed with pity. It wasn’t Victor’s fault that he was… well, the way he was.

Was it. He shook off the frissons of shame that ran down his spine and ignored the hopeful look in Victor’s blue eyes, his only winning feature. “Soon,” he promised. Victor’s hand gripped the doorway, his overgrown, talonlike nails digging into the wood. He struggled with a fleeting inquiry but was unsure of how to form the words from his lips. “Soon, creature! LEAVE US!” Essex’s voice boomed, and Victor cowered, a bizarre sight considering his size and demeanor. Victor shuffled off quickly, and Essex and Modok set about the task of removing the various drapes and straps.

His creation lay silent on the surgery table, naked and vulnerable looking. Essex ran his hand lovingly over the newly attached arm, tracing the bumpy veins and the indent of his elbow. “Perfection,” he murmured. “Strong work, Modok.” The man’s craggy features stretched themselves into some semblance of a smile.

“You honor me, Master.”

“Help me move him into the womb,” he ordered, referring to the gestation module in the next room. They carefully transferred him to the waiting gurney made up with a pristine white sheet. Modok struggled a bit with the subject’s long limbs, but he tucked his long arms over his chest, crossing them in such a way that he looked like a sleeping child.

Modok lit the lanterns and turned the crank that unlocked the metal, cylindrical tank. The observation window pane was roughly eight by ten inches of reinforced glass, and the door swished open smoothly, revealing the recessed table within it. Essex tilted the tank in trendelenburg, and Modok rushed to help him hoist the limp body up onto the table, securing him with straps and leather-lined manacles. His arms were stretched wide like a crucified sinner’s, and there was something supplicating in the repose of his face. And an elegant face it was, all smooth planes and contours, a rare find amongst the stock that Essex harvested during his search for worthy, salvageable specimens. His head drooped slack, chin leaning into his chest, until Essex strapped his head down against the cold block, too, and began to secure lead wires to his forehead with strips of adhesive.

They locked the tank, sealing him inside, and almost immediately the suite filled with the hissing sounds of fluid rushing into it from the pipes tunneling up through the floor. The fluid gurgled and sloshed, bubbling up and swallowing Essex’s newest pet by inches. Excitement consumed both scientists as the tank hummed to life. “Now!” Essex ordered, and Modok rushed to the switch on the wall, pulling down the heavy, stiff lever with a loud clack.

Anticipation made Essex’s heart skip, then pound its way out of his chest. Adrenaline made his mouth run dry as the twin antennas atop the two towers flanking his estate extended themselves toward the night sky, sparking with energy. As if on cue, thunder rattled the ground and turned the air around them into a barrage of noise. Essex felt it coursing through the walls and in his own blood, and he laughed with abandon. Modok watched him nervously, then returned his attention to their subject. He belatedly handed him a pair of darkened goggles, even though the light in the suite was sparse, fed only by the lanterns and the moonlight. That, too, became scarce as the storm clouds rolled to obscure the pearly orb. They smelled damp, sweet petrichor, heralding the first raindrops that spattered against Essex’s skylight.

“It’s coming. Get ready,” Essex growled, and Modok silently crossed himself, his stubby fingers making the protective gesture quickly over his stained surgical gown. The skylight opened, and a third antenna installed at the head of the gestation tank extended, humming with static. Essex’s short black hair began rising until he slapped at it in annoyance, feeling it crackle around his nape. The night air was brisk and chilly, and they almost welcomed the rain drops against their fevered flesh, still overheated from the surgical protective gear. “Ground yourself, Modok!” Essex cried out as the first cloud was split by a jagged streak of blue-white light!

 

The lightning teased them with its power and beauty for several aching, desperate minutes, and they nearly danced with impatience. Modok ran for the thick rubber floor mats, dragging them into the suite. They planted themselves atop the grounded surface, the lightning’s reflection flashing over the surface of their goggles’ lenses. They waited, holding their breath over the roll of thunder. Then the next. Another…

“Gods… here it comes,” Essex whispered.

“Heaven help us,” Modok breathed.

“It has,” Essex countered as an arc of lightning sizzled across the sky, then exploded from the clouds like a gift from Zeus. It was magnificent. The antennas out on the keep summoned the lightning, harvesting its power, then toying with it, catching it within a stream of energy that arced back from one pole to the other. The gestation tank bubbled and vibrated, and Essex saw the new creature’s hair floating in the fluid, lifting up from his noble brow. His features were distorted by the liquid, but in his repose, he was beautiful. “Soon,” he promised aloud. The humming in the chamber grew louder, and they felt the floor tremble beneath their feet.

Out in the corridor, Victor growled and whimpered to himself and shrank back against the wall. The air felt charged and wrong, somehow. His hairs along his arms stood on end along with the hackles on his neck. He smelled the tang of lightning and cowered back from its fury. He had an unreasonable fear of the elements, as Victor seldom ventured out of the castle. Essex feared that his gruesome, hulking appearance would attract questions, or worse, suspicion about the true nature of his activities in the name of “research.” Victor led a sheltered but miserable life locked in the tower, only allowed to roam the castle’s lower level at his master’s discretion. Essex considered him barely teachable, but he busied Victor with small chores, only valued slightly higher than the kitchen drudges in his household. He huddled down into his ill-fitting jacket, rubbing his arms against the shivers that seized him.

His master promised him a special friend, one just like him. Soon, he told him. “S…soon,” he whispered hoarsely. His voice was unaccustomed to speech, and it sounded rough to his own ears. Then the loneliness would stop.

The thunder died down to a low clatter, like slaps of a snare drum, and both men held their breath, disappointment breaking through their euphoria, but the air was still charged with electricity around them. “Blast,” Essex hissed. “So close…!” His next words were drowned out by renewed thunder, booming and overwhelming. The walls around them shuddered and for a moment, Essex feared for his ancestral home. Still, he relished the storm, and its promise.

The sky seemed to hold its breath for a moment, before the clouds exploded once again with blinding light. The clouds opened up to release a stunning, deadly ribbon of lightning directly overhead. Essex raised his arms, palms outstretched toward the heavens in welcome.

“COME!” he screamed. “COME TO MY CREATION!”

Abject terror coursed through his blood as the lightning made its invasive strike, followed by thrilling, unbelievable satisfaction as it hit its mark, racing for the third antenna’s probe. It heeded me! He crowed inwardly, even as he rocked back and stumbled against the forgotten gurney. Every hair on his body responded to the spectacle before him, and his eyes burned, along with the thousand tingles running through him. His heart tachy’ed in time with the coursing crackles of lightning pouring forth into the tank.

“It will destroy it!” Modok insisted raggedly. “It’s too much!”

“SILENCE, DAMN YOU!” Essex roared. It was too late to argue or to back out, and Essex felt resigned. Like Modok, even if he refused to admit to his folly, the observation window validated his fears. The creature’s repose came to a violent end. Its mouth and eyes snapped open, and he appeared to be screaming. He struggled within the restraints, and his eyes…

…they glowed as hot and red as a firebrand. His movements were hindered by the surrounding bath, and his hair partly obscured his face. The lightning ceased its assault with one final barrage of crackles, but the energy continued to surge into the tank. Arcs of electricity spat themselves from the antenna, and the feedback sent a stray current of shock directly toward Modok. His eyes widened in disbelief as it struck him directly in the heart. Essex stood rooted to the floor in shock as his lifelong friend and colleague opened his mouth to implore him, then stumbled and collapsed at his feet.

The energy died down to mere sparks, having exhausted its search for an exit and its thirst for destruction, and Essex struggled for breath, dazed and overwhelmed. The rain continued, stirring him from his stupor, and he ran to close the skylight and to shut down the power at last. He knelt by Modok, feeling his pulse; resigned, he reached down and closed his eyes.

“For a moment, old friend… we were gods.” He rose slowly, and with purpose, went to the gestation tank. He peered inside and felt his heart drop.

The being’s eyes were closed once more, and he seemed to drift in slumber. “NO! NO, NO!” Essex cried out. He struggled with the pressure lock, a more difficult task without Modok to lend him his strength, and he cranked the wheel that groaned at his demands. The door’s seal released with a loud popping sound, and he cursed as gallons of fluid flooded the floor, soaking his trousers. He slammed the door out from the tank and reached for the new being, feeling for a pulse. None. He flung off the goggles and reverse-trended the table to recline him. He bowed his head to his chest, listening for any stubborn, stray heartbeat.

“No! CURSE YOU, no, no, NO!” he roared. Essex banged his fists against the metal. He reached for the creature and shook it by the arms, long, perfect limbs with fluid, graceful muscle. He detached the leads and gently lifted one dewy eyelid, peering down to examine its pupils. His breath caught at the sight of the strange, unholy, glowing crimson irises floating on sclera of jet black. “Damn,” he muttered, marveling at the phenomenon.

The pupils dilated, then contracted, dispelling his rage. A spark of hope lit itself in his breast. He reached for the new being, hands gripping its jaw and prying open its mouth. He covered it with his and breathed into him, rested, then repeated. He watched the chest for recoil. Nothing. He attempted it again. The body before him was still and cold, dripping in afterbirth on the clammy metal slab. He laced his fingers together and began compressions, forceful and determined. “Awake,” he grunted. “I command… you. Damn you. _Damn you_.”

He breathed into him again, several gusts, willing him to accept life and acknowledge the sacrifice that his doomed assistant made to give it to him. Essex cursed as he began compressions again, eyes blurring with exhaustion and despair. “Breathe, damn you! Live… LIVE!” His fingers flew apart and he struck its chest futilely, rage blinding him. “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!” His screams echoed off the walls and metallic surfaces in the laboratory, and his only reply was the pounding rain against the skylight. The thunder continued with less intensity, and lightning blanketed the sky once more, mocking him. He punched the being… his experiment, he realized bitterly, once more, then sank down against it, bowing his head to its chest. Essex wept. His voice escaped him in choked, ragged sobs, echoing tears shed over Elizabeth’s grave so many moons gone by.

His hand gripped its shoulder, fingers digging into the cold flesh, and he turned his eyes up to its face, pleading with it. “Why?” he whispered. “Why… can’t-?”

The creature’s chest spasmed. Its fingers twitched. Essex’s heart hammered, and he straightened up, feeling the elegant tendons of its throat for a pulse.

Weak, but there. “Come back,” he grunted. He restarted the compressions, then gave him another breath. Two. Three…

The being’s body jerked reflexively at first, but its mouth opened of its own accord, and it turned its head away from Essex’s hovering face, spewing mouthfuls of fluid from the tank mixed with bile. The being coughed! Its hand struggled within the manacle, and Essex nearly danced with delirious joy, but his legs wouldn’t support him. Shock and his efforts at resuscitating him weakened him. The new being’s head lolled back and forth as it tried to breathe on its own, and Essex watched in delight as the taut chest rose and fell, somewhat unevenly, but enough to satisfy him that this wasn’t just a reflex, but a _conscious effort_. He began to unfasten the safety straps and manacles, and he gently slapped its cheek.

“Open your eyes,” he ordered it. “Look at me. Can you look at me?” The being was still unaccustomed to breathing, and his efforts were stertorous; Essex heard lung crackles, telling him they were still full of fluid. But it – he – obeyed him, and those remarkable eyes drifted open and stared at him directly, bewildered. He panted for air, closed his mouth to lick his lips, then continued to pant. His eyes darted around at his surroundings, and returned to Essex’s face.

“My name is Nathaniel,” he murmured to him. “And I am your father.”

The gods shivered.


	2. Forsaken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Victor meets the new being meant to be his companion. Things don’t go well.

Disclaimer: I don’t own these characters or the X-Men fandom; Marvel does. I make no money for writing this piece of sh- I mean, fiction.

Author’s Note: Goodness only knows when I will ever update this again. Personal time is at a premium for me, but thank you for any views or feedback that I get for this ditty. Be well and happy creating.

 

Victor lingered in the corridor, whimpering and snuffling from the fearsome cracks of thunder and flashing brackets of light that lit up the doorway to the laboratory. He smelled the ozone and electricity, and it felt eerie and unnatural, unsettling him further. But anticipation and hope fluttered in his chest. He flexed his taloned fingers and reached for the door, but jerked back at the sound of his master’s sobs and shouts.

“Open your eyes… look at me. Can you look at me?” His words evoked a dim memory, a shady vision from his subconscious, the tactile imprint of a cold slab beneath his back, waking up to his master’s glowing eyes and look of resignation.

“I am your father.”

Victor stiffened. He stood on the threshold of an answered prayer, and joy flared briefly inside him. “Friend,” he whispered hoarsely. “My…friend.” The loneliness was about to end, never to sting him again with its cold bite. He jerked again when he heard Essex call out to his house staff for assistance. Victor hovered at the doorway while Michael Suggs, one of his stewards, pushed past him and strode into the lab. He looked angry at being called away from his previous task. Beady, feral eyes flicked around his surroundings, and he wrinkled his lupine-looking nose at the odor of fetid water and chemicals.

“What do you bid me, Master?”

“Assist me. Help me move him into the new suite. Fetch Madelyne.”

“She’s sleepin’, milord,” Suggs argued.

“Then wake her. Tell her I need her,” Essex snapped. His face looked drawn, but Suggs could feel his exhilaration and saw the look of satisfaction in his usually stern eyes. Suggs huffed and nodded, then turned to Victor, hackles raising as he remembered his presence. It was impossible not to, when the great beast of a man smelled worse than a warthog in heat.

“Victor! Rouse Maddie,” Suggs bellowed. “I’m to help the Master!” Victor growled and whined from the doorway, and his face was the vision of childlike petulance, nearly pouting. Essex looked up from the task of shouldering the new being – his new companion – up from the table. The nude, lanky figure was unsteady on its – his – feet and he stumbled along like a fawn. Victor longed to touch him, even to carry him downstairs himself; he was certainly strong enough, and the task would be a welcome one, but Essex was determined not to brook any further delays. Suggs helped him wrap the new being in a clean sheet for decency’s sake, unwilling to scandalize the scullery girls any more than necessary.

“Go,” Essex snapped, and Victor obeyed quickly, not liking the sharpness of his tone. He was well aware of his master’s impatience and methods of discipline. Essex had a gift for torture in the most novel forms. Victor’s body was riddled with old, half-healed scars that were the hallmark of his creation, but thanks to a gift for accelerated healing that Essex genetically engineered through his “experiments,” any new welts and stings from the lash or hot poker healed within minutes. Every time Essex punished Victor, he partook of a fresh, blank canvas.

Essex could be kind, after a fashion. Victor took his frequent reminders of his master’s generosity to heart and as bond, how merciful he was to allow Victor to live in the remote tower, away from the jaundiced eye of the village. His deformed figure and countenance were hideous; Essex had to “take care of” several members of his staff on the night of Victor’s creation who realized that their employer was not merely a country doctor dealing in poultices and herbs. Cries of “DAEMON! Foul beast from the pit!” still haunted Victor’s dreams. He tried to form the proper words to tell them he was harmless, but his voice was guttural and harsh, and he couldn’t fully articulate his intentions.

“Miiiiine,” Victor rumbled. “Mine, now.” Suggs growled his impatience from beneath the new creature’s opposite arm as they shouldered him toward the door. The new being’s eyes were still unfocused, and his head drooped.

“Do as you’re TOLD! FETCH MADELYNE!” Essex roared. Victor cowered, then stumbled out into the corridor, anxious now to do his bidding.

“Wretched waste of flesh,” Suggs muttered, tsking.

“Watch how you speak about my work,” Essex warned him, even as he silently agreed with him. “Victor has his virtues.”

“If you insist, milord.” They headed down the back corridor from the tower to the long, spiral stairwell that took them down several stories. As they descended, Suggs paused to light the sconces on each flight to ease their way. The new being’s breathing was nearly silent, and he was still unaccustomed to walking, making their gait awkward among them. But his grip on both men was strong. Suggs’s nose twitched; the new creature smelled virile and fresh beneath the pungent stench of chemicals that permeated his skin and hair. His master refined his work with his one, he mused. He longed to have a good, long look at him once they moved him into the suite.

Essex unlocked the door at the foot of the last flight of stairs with a key strung from a heavy ring. Very few of his staff had cart blanche to enter his laboratory, and he required complete peace and no disturbances while he worked. They eased through the door and sealed it behind them once more, entering the corridor of the living quarters of his home.

The wall was hung with family portraits and was decked with velvet-flocked wallpaper in shades of burgundy and deep gray. Both men’s damp boots threatened to ruin the fine Persian throw rugs. The new being stumbled, and they barely missed knocking a porcelain vase from a marble pedestal. Suggs caught it and righted it before they continued to the guest suite. The room was special.

The single window was fitted with iron bars. It lacked a balcony, unlike Essex’s master suite and several of the other rooms in the house. The furnishings were spare and utilitarian. The curtains were short and lacked tie-back cords, a necessary evil. Essex’s previous creations, sometimes out of desperation, resorted to desperate means to end the torment of their stunted existence. There was no mirror hanging over the vanity. Every sharp object had been removed.

Essex lit a small sconce as they led the new being into the room, and the creature waited to be turned so that he could sink slowly down to the full-sized bed made up with starched linens and a dove gray coverlet. “Bring me my case,” Essex told Suggs tersely. “I must examine him.”

“Yes, milord.” Essex was still brimming with excitement as he stared at the new being, who was swaying slightly where he sat, equilibrium still lacking. His eyes jerked and flitted about, and his fingers curled in the cool bedclothes, clutching them. “Rest, child,” Essex bade him in a honeyed voice. “Welcome home.” The new being’s hand rose, and he stared at it, flexing his long, slender fingers. Gently he touched one of the bandages wrapped around his wrists. He tugged on it out of curiosity until Nathaniel gripped his hands, making him stop. “No. They’ll become infected. Leave it be.” Suggs returned with his case, a large, black leather satchel with steel fastenings. Essex opened the hooks on the medicine bag and pulled out several implements and tools, laying them out in a neat row across the bed. The new being shivered from the cool air of the suite, but Essex ignored it.

He took the new creature’s temperature and peered down into his throat, nearly gagging him with the small tongue depressor. He listened to his heartbeat and pulse, steady and strong now. He tested his reflexes, still slightly delayed but strong. His pupil activity was still delayed, and his eyes were still that strange, remarkable crimson, showing no signs of changing since he’d awakened. “Interesting.”

“Eh,” Suggs muttered from the bench seat across the room. He watched the examination with growing interest. Essex did fine work, indeed. The new creature wasn’t as tall as Victor this time, thankfully, and he had a spare, lithe build with broad shoulders. When he laid him out on the bed and uncovered him, unwrapping the sheet from his face, Suggs sucked in a shaky breath.

He was exquisite. His chest was sculpted and firm, and his abdomen was a smooth, taut ripple of muscle. A dark nest of coarse hair bristled out from the divide between the long, supple thighs, protecting the resting, flaccid manhood. It twitched beneath Sugg’s gaze and his fingers itched to touch it, but he remained still. Essex palpated his belly and probed his groin, examining the vulnerable, round sac. Suggs winced at thread-thin, reddish scars here and there, not wanting to focus overlong on their origin. “Perfect,” Essex muttered.

“Fine work, milord,” Suggs murmured.

“Stop your drooling, man. He’s already spoken for.” Suggs growled his annoyance. “Where’s Madelyne?”

“She already comes, sir.” Suggs picked up her scent before Essex even heard her footsteps. The low knock preceded the creak of the door, and the glow from the sconces threw coppery glints over his housekeeper’s high, orderly bouffant, topped neatly with a lace-trimmed white cap. Her decadent red hair was set off well by her austere black dress and plain, starched white apron. Shrewd green eyes smiled at him when her mouth wouldn’t. She nodded and curtsied.

“Tell me your wishes, Master.”

“Find him clothing. Send up a bath and do something about his hair.” The hair in question was full of static and clung to Essex’s hand when he tried to stroke it; then he moved back a tendril from his brow, it shocked him, and he yanked his hand back in annoyance.

“’Tis a chilly night,” Madelyne agreed, “and we mustn’t let the poor dear catch his death.” She didn’t have the decency to avert her eyes or to flush at the sight of the new being’s nudity. Essex was unorthodox, and he wasn’t the sort to chide or punish her for it. Nothing, and no one in his home, escaped his housekeeper’s eyes. “We’ve some clothes that might fit him. He’s about Wilson’s size. They should do until he can be better outfitted, milord.”

“See to it, then.”

“Shall I feed him, then, too?”

“Perhaps. Fix him some broth.” Essex wasn’t sure that his new creature would have the same rapacious appetite that Victor woke up with the night he was born, but it was late, and he longed for his own bed. He had no inclination to rouse his kitchen staff to prepare their newest guest a feast in the wee hours. “Where is Victor?”

“Pleasantly distracted.” Madelyne enticed him to the lonely butcher block table with a dish of rich, pungent chicken livers and some cold leftover roast, keeping him quiet and docile. It sickened her to watch him eat, and she was grateful when she heard Essex’s thoughts, bidding her to come to the guest quarters, posthaste. She pitied poor Victor, but like everyone else in Essex’s household, he had to fend for himself. It was survival of the fittest.

Occasionally, she saw Victor in her dreams, a different man from the cowering tower of awkwardness that he was now. The dreams were full of smoke, fire and blood, and she often heard screams and growls that jerked her awake. Victor’s blue eyes, dilated and maddened, often glared at her through the darkness, and blood dripped from his maw and talons. She awoke from these dreams chilled and unsettled, but they were frequent and not much different from the visions she’d had since entering Essex’s employ. She felt Elizabeth’s presence in the walls and occasionally communed with the poor dear; she could barely feel the child’s essence, not fully formed when she lost him in the throes of childbirth. She quailed from her widowed husband’s experiments, denouncing them as dark works, and Madelyne knew she haunted her dreams by way of warning. Madelyne knew how futile it was to share her concerns against his insistence to continue his goal of creating “perfection,” and she remained, wisely, silent. On difficult nights, she retired for the night with a large snifter of warm brandy. It took the edge off the visions, blurring them and dampering the screams.

She’d patted Victor fondly and wiped his chin, dripping with slick meat juices, before she left the kitchen and went upstairs. Sweet, pitiful wretch. It was a waste of time to refine him, surely; a silk purse a sow’s ear would not make, after all. Victor was hideous, not entirely unteachable, but they would never make him tenable to the villagers, already narrow-minded and bound to the Cross. He understood speech without difficulty, but he struggled to find the words or voice to express himself; this frequently undersold him to whomever dealt with him from day to day. Victor’s senses, like Suggs’, were enhanced and sharp, often making him startle at sounds that she couldn’t discern herself, or causing his nostrils to flare at unappealing scents. He reacted viscerally to those he felt would do him harm, feeling “vibrations” from them much in the way a canine perceived humans with less than noble intent toward them.

Madelyne read his emotions and was always stunned by how uncomplicated they were. His thoughts were murky and she couldn’t sift through the chaos and noise in his mind, but his feelings were an open book. They lacked the deviousness of Essex or Modok and the baseness of Suggs or Wilson’s, but, Madelyne reasoned, that could always change. No one who entered Essex’s employ remained the same as they stayed, accepting both his coin and his poison. That would include herself, wouldn’t it?

Wouldn’t it, then.

*

Logan paused in digging the hard-packed, moist soil to wipe his grimy brow with the back of his wrist. He cursed the disheveled black locks falling into his eyes as he worked. He’d been busier than ever over the past few months, adding more coin to his purse. He ignored the fat raindrops soaking through his jacket and running down his nape beneath his collar.

A grave digger’s work was never done, and it was never pretty.

He worked from sun-up to sundown, tireless and heedless of time or fatigue. Sleep was not his friend, as his dreams were often dark and troubled. The toil kept his hands occupied and made use of the anguish and rage that burned in his chest through every waking moment.

Digging. Drinking. Gambling. Digging. Screwing. Fighting. Digging. Running. Drinking. Surviving. That routine characterized his days, which numbered more than he’d asked his creator for, hadn’t they? Logan had lived too long and seen too much, and he was tired of it. Opening the earth to admit the lost wasn’t delicate work, but it suited him. No one bothered him while he worked, and he craved the solitude.

His muscles burned, and his palms were calloused from the shaft of the shovel; he barely felt the splinters that pierced his skin. He listened to the chaffing of the metal blade sliding through damp earth and rocks. He peered over the edge of the grave, deciding that it was almost deep enough. He tugged on the rope he tied for himself, testing it. Logan tossed the shovel up over the lip, hearing it thud against the ground. His throat burned for a drink, and the village tavern called for him.

Bodies began turning up again, once again making his services indispensable. Logan sensed evil in the air again, thick as the stench of blood and rotting flesh before the lost souls were carted off to the village undertaker’s. The wistful part of him lingered at funeral services and interments, silent and at the fringe of the throng of mourners, wondering at the one entering the ground, benefitting from his labors. Were they a devoted and loving husband? A rosy-cheeked child? A courageous son lost at war? Or was it one of the unlucky ones, carefully lowered in a plain, locked pine box, place inside in pieces? Logan heard the rumors in the taverns, shops and docks. He felt the villagers’ fear, yet they loved the scandal and speculation. Was it part of a demonic pact or sacrifice? Was it a jealous lover exacting gruesome revenge? The stories varied, from ridiculous to grotesque, and the village alternated between abject, cold fear and utter titillation.

He coiled the rope around his wrist twice, three times, testing its strength again, and he began his climb out of the grave. This one was medium-length, man-sized, at least, something that strangely comforted him. The Essex funeral, a double burial, had stung him deeply; as distasteful and eccentric as he found Dr. Nathaniel Essex, he didn’t envy any man who had to pay for two graves, no matter how much wealth he had at his disposal. Essex, in his opinion, had lost everything.

He untied the rope from his hitch and retrieved his shovel. Logan whistled as he turned his steps onto the gravel road, visions of a cold ale in his head. It was a strong night’s work, indeed. He enjoyed the play of lightning overhead, providing him with his entertainment for the night.

*

 

Victor abandoned his empty plate and licked the last of the meaty juices from his clumsy fingers, wiping them carelessly on his battered shirt. Madelyne, with her fastidious manner and flaming hair, left him alone, and he didn’t like it. Victor was a “pack animal,” as Essex told his staff. Even though he lacked the social graces, he craved the presence of others around him, which made it difficult when Essex wished to lock him away. Victor often quailed and fought against being returned to his cell. It boasted a tiny window that allowed him a narrow view of the stars, and on brighter days, scant sunlight. Madelyne liked him, or she wouldn’t feed him, Victor reasoned. It was time to find her.

And, it was time to meet his new friend. Victor trudged up the stairs as quietly as his hulking form would allow. He made his way toward the “special” room, one he knew quite well, and he shivered. The memories… were less than pleasant.

He caught Madelyne’s scent and his lips twisted in a slight smile. There, inside… then he frowned. _Suggs_. Jealousy reared its head. Why was the steward allowed to see the new creature first and help his master with him? The new being was _his_ friend. Victor growled and lumbered to the chamber, not bothering to knock. The door gave way with a slight shove. His moan was guttural as he peered inside, only to find Suggs and Essex glaring back at him. Madelyne sighed; she’d sensed him coming, knowing it was time to pacify him again, but sooner than she’d assumed.

“Dear heart, go back downstairs,” she suggested.

“No. Not quite yet,” Essex decided, surprising her. “Give him a moment. He’s waited long enough. Victor… come meet your new friend.”

“Fr…friend,” he pronounced, feeling proud of himself. “Mine.”

“Yours,” Essex agreed easily, but there was a twinge of uncertainty in handing him over.

“Name?” Victor inquired as he drew closer. Suggs snarled from the bench, and Victor turned and snarled back, drawing back his lips from feral-looking, snagged teeth. Suggs’ hackles rose and Essex saw the whites of the man’s eyes.

“Enough!” Essex roared. “Michael, return to your post. It’s Victor’s turn to meet him.”

“Bloody waste,” he muttered as he vacated the bench. Madelyne felt the strange mixture of lust, envy and anger radiating from him, rich stew for an empath.

“Go on, then,” she encouraged him, and her lips fought the urge to smile. “Tell him hello, Victor.”

“Name,” Victor repeated impatiently. He approached the bed, where the new being slumbered, tired of being prodded and examined, and of course, weak from his ordeal in the tank.

“I haven’t decided quite yet,” Essex admitted. “Perhaps you might suggest a nice one for him, Victor.” Victor’s eyes were fixed on the young man with the bed clothes pulled up as high as his waist.

He was splendid. His skin was smooth, creamy and pale, and his veins stood out in stark relief from the cold air. Unruly dark hair whose color was difficult to determine in the partial darkness spread itself over the pillow. His features, in repose, were masculine and elegant, arranged over firm bone structure. Long lashes fluttered over his cheeks, which twitched as he sensed the new presence hovering over him, watching him.

“Mine,” Victor whispered as he reached out to him. His hand hovered over his cheek, longing to stroke it.

The new being’s hand flew up and clamped around Victor’s wrist, and his eyes snapped open, widening in alarm at the sight of the hulking creature. Victor’s blue eyes widened, too, in surprise and awe. “Red,” he whispered, and Essex knew he was commenting on his eyes. He tried to free himself from his grip, but the new being was stronger than he looked.

Fear suffused the youthful face, and he shook his head, shrinking back into the pillow. “Mine,” Victor insisted again, trying to reason with him. He wanted to stroke the thick hair, which looked soft, but the being fought him again, slapping away his touch. He moaned at the sight of Victor and feinted every time he reached for him. Victor stared back at Nathaniel in confusion, growling and trying ineffectually to speak.

“He’s skittish,” Essex assured him, but wariness brought him to his feet. He curled his hand around Victor’s arm. “He’s had a long night. Perhaps we’ll leave him be, for now.” Victor stared down at his new companion, who was working his way out of the covers and pushing back against the headboard in an attempt to escape. Madelyne tried to soothe him, feeling his chaotic jumble of emotions. She pushed herself between Victor and the new creature, placing a cautious hand on his chest.

“Best to let him be, dearie. Come, now, I have some sweets for you-“

“No!” Victor insisted hoarsely. “Mine!” He pointed at him again, but the new being’s eyes were stunned, focused fully on Victor now, impressing Essex that they were capable of it now, without the jerky movements. “P-promised,” he continued. “My…friend. MINE!” The sound of Victor’s voice seemed to light a fire under the new being; he struggled completely out of bed and stumbled to his feet. He made a whimpering sound and his face beseeched Essex to protect him.

“Easy, now,” Essex soothed. “Victor won’t bite.” As if to support him, Victor smiled. His snagged teeth and slightly elongated canines gleamed in the low light. His grumble of agreement sounded like a low growl. That galvanized the creature’s panic response. His eyes darted around the room, and he backed toward the corner of the room, heedless of his nude state. Victor’s eyes raked over him, and to her alarm, Madelyne sensed the creature’s arousal and immediate desire for the young man in their midst.

“Oh, dear,” she muttered. She sensed Elizabeth in the chamber, whispering warnings in her ear, and Madelyne felt a strange accumulation of kinetic energy building in the air, not unlike the lightning that danced in the sky outside.

“Victor, calm yourself!” Essex scolded. Victor disliked his harsh tone and the fact that he was being denied his long-awaited reward. He snarled back at Essex and lunged for the man again, surprisingly swift. He grasped his wrist and pulled him close, burying his nose in his cheek and taking a long, searching sniff. His tongue darted out and tasted his skin, and the being wriggled and tensed, shoving at him.

“Mine,” Victor insisted. “Want… friend,” he told him impatiently. His thick, dark blond brows beetled together and his nostrils flared. Confusion shifted to annoyance as he struggled to understand why his new friend didn’t seem to want him. He glared back at Essex as if to say, “Fix him!”

The new being struggled and emitted a piercing cry. Victor winced and covered his ears, briefly freeing his captive. Those stunning red-on-black eyes crackled to life with energy, and his pulse pounded visibly in his throat. Essex eased his way between both of his creations, but Victor shoved him aside impatiently, knocking him against the wall, heedless of any future punishment he would receive. He’d waited too long…

The new being searched the room desperately. His eyes landed on a small water jug on the settee. He felt the flare of energy running along his nerve endings, suffusing him with strength and heat, no longer feeling chilled in the drafty room. Victor lunged for him again and jerked him against his bulk, and his nose wrinkled at his musky odor and hot breath. He sensed base emotions and need, unbridled lust, and he shrank back from the hard knob being ground against him where he came into contact with his pelvis.

“Victor, DON’T!” Madelyne screeched. The new being groped for the jug, and energy flowed from his fingertips, charging it with heat and concussive force. Hot, dancing sparks flew from it, reflecting the ones shooting from those demon’s eyes, and the new being roared with rage and denial as he slammed the jug against the side of Victor’s head. It exploded against his temple and stunned him, making him stagger back and collapse.

“Gods,” Essex exclaimed, stunned. That wasn’t in his calculations… he never imagined… how was it possible?

“Master! Dr. Essex! What was that?” Madelyne accused.

“That… was science, you silly chit,” Essex chided her.” His creation was still wild-eyed and fearful, and he reached for the settee this time, lifting it with both hands over his head as Essex neared. “No! NO! Calm yourself, child,” he encouraged. He heard Victor moan in pain and watched him slowly sit up. His expression was rocky and stunned, and he stared up at the new being where he brandished the settee. Victor growled.

“Victor, settle down, are you all right?” Madelyne offered, rushing to his side. With a broad sweep of his long, brawny arm, Victor’s hand swatted her away, striking her roughly across the cheek. “OWW!” She stumbled back and cracked her skull on the leg of the bench, falling unconscious. Victor roared at his own mistake and the sight of the housekeeper, lying still as a rag doll. His blue eyes were dilated and his breathing was fast and rough, panting like a canine. Essex watched the settee beginning to glow with more of that irresistible energy, emitting the same sparks, and he heard the new being cry out a warning.

“NO!”

He spoke! Essex was thrilled for a brief moment, until the settee flew at Victor this time, hitting him squarely in the chest. Victor flew back, and the impact of his back with the wall cracked the plaster and knocked a hanging portrait down onto his head, shattering the glass. “Damn!” he cursed. This was a disaster. He needed to settle him, and Madelyne, usually gifted when it came to calming the beast, was useless and inert. Suggs, on the other hand, arrived back at the suite, out of breath and wild-eyed. He stared at the new being and shivered at the sight of his eyes.

“Shit,” he muttered. “What’s that? What happened, Master?”

“AAARRRRRRHHHHHH!” Victor roared at the sight of the one he considered a rival for his new friend, sensing the other man’s interest in him earlier. He ignored the new being in favor of charging at Suggs, and the two men grappled and snarled and bit at each other. Essex reeled, focused on his creation. He went to him, gripping his wrists before he could reach for anything else to launch at Victor.

“Hear me! Look at me! We won’t hurt you,” he told him. “We-“ His words were cut off as both feral men barreled into them, knocking them over in their struggle. Suggs reached for the bench he sat on earlier and brought it up, planning to bash Victor with it. Victor tired of him and tackled him, shouldering himself into the shorter man’s chest.

The new creature struggled, rocky and unsteady, to his feet, and he ran from the room in the confusion. He sent the same route that they came in from, toward the spiral stairwell, the only way that was familiar to him. “No!” Essex groaned. “Don’t!” Victor ignored his flight, enraged and only seeing his rival snarling back at him.

He struck him, talons digging into the man’s throat. It felt too welcome, too satisfying to strike him, and the other man gurgled with the need for air. Victor pounded his head back against the floor, strangling him, savagely relishing the squeeze of his flesh in his grip. His blue eyes dilated until they were nearly black, and he was roaring with rage, guttural cries that sped the new being’s feet as he climbed the stairs, not daring to look back.

Essex implored Victor, “STOP! You’ll kill him!”

“I… don’t CARE!” he spat, shocking Essex with his fluency. “Wants… what’s MINE!”

“HE’S NOT YOURS, vile beast! He doesn’t want you! You’re not good enough for him, don’t you understand?” Victor released Suggs, his fingers going slack in the collar of his shirt. He shook his head, and his expression was completely destroyed, the picture of abject despair.

“Mine!” he insisted hoarsely.

“NO! Not yours!” Essex shot back. “You can’t have him! Go! LEAVE THIS PLACE!” Victor roared them, a deafening, ululating sound that seemed to shake the house. He keened and wailed his rage to the ceiling and pounded his chest. Everything he’d waited for, for so long, was being yanked from his grasp, leaving him to wallow in loneliness once more. The man who promised him everything he wanted was glaring down at him, denying him, the puppet master strangling him in the wires. Victor saw the cruel, rheumy eyes and hardened features through a red haze of rage, temple throbbing with renewed, surging blood flow and hearing a rushing sound in his ears. _His own heartbeat_.

“LIAR! YOU LIED…TO ME!” Victor beat his chest and staggered to his feet, then launched himself at Essex. He barreled them out into the hall, knocking the wind from his chest.

The new being’s legs burned from the long climb, banking his toes on the hard, cold stairs. He stumbled, rubbed his throbbing knee, then continued to sprint for the door. It had been unlocked in their haste to bring him to the suite… He struggled with the knob, which gave way with a savage twist.

 

Victor shook Essex aside like a toy and stormed down the corridor, back toward the tower. Now that the other three were out of his way, he could take what was his. Once he had the chance to touch him, to explain to him that he was made for him, then the new being would want Victor. He was sure of it. Essex’s cruel words rang in his ears and fueled his rage. His creator had abandoned him. It was too much. Victor craved kindness and someone who would belong to him, who wouldn’t merely suffer him or tolerate him out of some sense of mercy or obligation.

The new creature would be his.

Or he would belong to _no one_.


	3. Adam, Reinvented

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new life, cobbled together from old. Tragedy isn’t far behind.

Author’s Note: I hope I can keep this going while it still has some momentum. It never takes me long to get stuck, and I struggle to dig myself out of holes once I DO get stuck. Best wishes and happy creating.

Additional Note: The background players, so far, are Sinister’s Nasty Boys. Stay tuned for more familiar names and Easter eggs.

 

The new being nearly slipped on the wet, slick floor as he scrambled inside the laboratory. The air was frigid, and he shivered, seeing his breath leave his mouth in small puffs. The skylight in the ceiling was closed, but he could see the rain pounding it in a spattering, blurry sheet. He quailed at the sight of the lightning, and he darted into the corner, huddling, trying to make sense of his surroundings and his purpose.

The one with dark hair called himself his father. The name… the designation rang a bell, but it didn’t seem to fit him. He handled him gently, but he examined him with such cold calculation, like a child about to pull the wings off of a fly.

The others… the smaller, more delicate one with red hair. He saw her, as well as felt her touch in his mind, and he wondered how that was possible. The other man with dark hair made him uncomfortable with his hard eyes, and his aura was cold and foreboding.

The hectic, wild energy within him had dissipated once he released it. He almost regretted striking the blond giant, but there was no help for it. Everything about his touch, the look in his eyes, his words… it all felt wrong. The new creature’s head throbbed and he shivered from the cold, teeth chattering. He wished he had stayed wrapped in the sheets, and he didn’t see anything else that he could use to protect himself.

The sound of heavy, hurried steps made him whimper in fear. He ran into the anteroom but knew he would be found. He doubled back and ran for the tank’s chamber. He ran behind the enormous metal construct and huddled behind it, trying to silence his breathing.

His efforts were for naught. Victor’s sense of smell told him where his prey – his friend – was more quickly than any other sign. He heard him stumbling and crashing his way through the anteroom, stumbling over the gurney. The new being trembled uncontrollably, newly mobile limbs still chilled from too little time under the covers. He stiffened with fear and swallowed roughly, afraid to make a sound. His beastly pursuer didn’t take the same precaution. He muttered to himself, growling and whining as he searched for him. The new being heard something fragile shattering on the cold floor. Victor swatted aside a rolling table of beakers, making their contents mingle and sizzle ominously, sending up noxious fumes. The scent made the new being’s nostrils burn, and he coughed inadvertently, sealing his fate.

“Come,” Victor grunted. “COME!” he roared, impatient to greet him properly. The new being’s heart, reanimated and strong, pounded in his chest and his skin erupted in gooseflesh. He saw Victor’s heavily booted feet stumble, pause, and shuffle across the floor from beneath the tank. Then he felt him hovering over him in the dark, his blue, watery eyes bulging at the sight of him. An almost pitiful smile spread across his face, revealing his rows of snagged, feral-looking teeth. “Mine,” he announced gutturally, pounding his chest. “Victor’s.” The new being shivered and shook his head. Victor nodded, certain that he didn’t understand. He backed up, plastering himself back against the wall, looking for another escape. Victor ignored his resistance and reached for him, grasping his wrist and hauling him up to his feet, risking dislocating the nimble shoulder and undoing his master’s fine work. The new being struggled weakly and quailed at the feel of the creature’s solid bulk. His body heat would have been welcome if Victor’s odor weren’t so musky and harsh. He shook his head in denial, groaning and writhing even as Victor’s large, clumsy hand skimmed over his soft hair, smoothing it back from the patrician face. His eyes raked over him with need. “Pr…pret-ty,” he grunted, testing the word. “Friennnnnnd…” Terror shone from the scarlet eyes, and they glowed with warning, energy and heat building in their depths, but Victor’s short memory didn’t allow him to interpret their meaning. He cupped his face in a rough grip, but the new being shook his hand loose with a snap of his jaw. His upper arm thrummed with tension where Victor held him, and Victor’s look of wonder shifted to a dark scowl. “Mine,” he snapped, and he grabbed his prize’s jaw again, but the new being snarled at him.

Victor slapped him savagely, sending him reeling. This wasn’t going as he’d planned. He wanted to be tender, but his companion didn’t realize his purpose, not yet. The new being attempted to rise from the floor, head muzzy from the strike, and he swiped at the rivulet of blood dripping from his nose. Victor’s eyes widened with interest and sudden hunger. Those eyes stared up at him again, and Victor sucked his teeth, beginning to drool at the sight of him, sprawled, nude and bleeding.

His manhood throbbed to life, and he shifted it idly, annoyed at his trousers that felt too tight. He reached for him, but this time the new being backed up, scooching back on his haunches. His eyes darted about, and they landed on one of the surgical tables. More empty beakers sat on its pristine surface. He scrambled for them, ignoring the shards of glass in his path. He groped for them, feeling its cool smoothness in his palm. “No,” Victor grunted. “Don’t!” The new being ignored him, and over the hiss of spilled chemicals, now beginning to smoke, he heard – and felt – the crackle of energy discharging from the new being’s hand, slowly turning the beaker into a weapon. He hurled it across the short divide between them, hitting Victor in the chest. He jerked back and roared.

Essex’s footsteps quickened as he heard the commotion echoing down the stairwell from his lab. He cursed his ancestors for building the tower so tall and for outfitting it with so many stairs. His breath burned in his lungs as he raced to save his newest creation from his first.

“VICTOR!” he shouted angrily. “VICTOR! NO! Leave him, damn you! He doesn’t belong to him.” He came upon them and saw everything through a cloud of rage. His new toy was scrabbling for his beakers, and he coughed at the rising fumes. He watched in disbelief as he charged the beaker and flung it at Victor’s feet, making him dance clumsily out of the way. Victor stumbled back into a work table, and his elbow bumped the dial on one of the Bunsen burners, turning on the gas. “NO! YOU FOOL!”

“RRRRAAARRRRGGGHHHH!” Essex ran at him, arm raised to strike him, but Victor lashed out first, easily slapping him down. He reached for a table and brandished it over his head. “You… LIED… to me!”

“Ignorant… beast,” Essex pronounced, feeling his cheek bruising. “Never… should have… made you.” Victor’s grimace faltered, and his face crumpled, and a glimmer of pity burned in Essex’s black heart, for just a moment. Victor growled and beat his chest, giving Essex a moment to roll out of the way before the table could crash down on his head. He scrambled for his creation, guarding him with his body. The new being clung to him and reeled as he pulled him to his feet. The new being saw that his “father’s” words fell on deaf ears when Essex called out to him to stop.

His hand found another beaker, and Essex felt the hairs on his neck rise with the buildup of kinetic energy and sparks. “Please… don’t! You mustn’t- “ He launched the charged, glowing beaker across the room. Victor saw it coming this time, and he swatted it away.

It knocked the leaking Bunsen burner from the table.

The lab exploded in a gaseous fireball. Victor screamed as the flames licked at him, their orange glow making their shadows dance and flicker across the lab’s walls. Victor cowered from the fire, and all three of them coughed from the smoke. Motes of cinders made Essex’s notes catch fire on a nearby credenza. He beat them out with his palm, cursing at the burns. The new being coughed and wretched, and he crouched low in an attempt to steal a breath of uncontaminated air, for naught. Victor backed away from the flames, petrified.

Essex took advantage of this knowledge, something he always knew about his oldest spawn. He broke a nearby wooden chair off against the wall, severing one of its ornately carved legs. He thrust it into the flames, and he parried with Victor, fresh torch burning ominously close. “You hate it, don’t you? You always have, daemon! Go, into the fires with you!”

“No! NO!” Victor’s voice was hoarse and thick with smoke and exhaustion, even as his healing factor fought to deal with the attack on his respiratory system. Sweat and grime gleamed on his flesh and cinders landed on his hair. He slapped at his head and roared as Essex teased him with his makeshift torch. Essex had an inspiration.

He shoved one of his wheeled tables at Victor, then another. He ran for the heavy bookshelf along the wall, inwardly mourning the waste of his expensive manuals and tomes. He knocked it down, scattering its precious load across the floor. His new creation backed his way toward the door. Victor moaned and whimpered. Essex handed his new creation the remains of the chair. “Charge it! NOW!” The new being shook his head in confusion, eyes pouring tears that streaked through the dirt on his cheeks. “OBEY ME!” He reached out and slapped him soundly. The new being choked and coughed on the building smoke. The lab was nearly opaque with the dark, noxious cloud as it billowed up, pushing against the skylight.

He took the proffered chair and it trembled in his weak grip as he obeyed his master. The glowing red energy consumed the object, and Essex jerked at the pulse and sting of energy as he took it from him and hurled it at Victor. Victor evaded it and stumbled back into a pool of flames, and it roared to life with its newest, breathing tinder.

Essex captured his new creation, arms hauling him to his feet. He dragged him from the burning lab, pulling down more furniture and fallen objects, creating an obstacle to bar Victor’s path back out from the tower. They stumbled toward the stairwell together, and Essex slammed the heavy door behind him, locking it with trembling fingers. His lungs burned as he wretched up soot. The young man beside him collapsed against the wall, and Essex caught him before he could tumble down the steps. He hoisted him up and looped his arm around his neck. He guided them down, down the spiraling path, unsteady and uncertain of their salvation. Upstairs, Essex heard the boom of another explosion, deafening in its intensity. His creation’s legs were useless, his body hanging slack against him like a doll’s. He clung to him, sagging beneath his burden, his life’s work.

He dragged him to the door, unlocking it, and above him, he heard the muted banging of fists – he was sure of it – pummeling the door to the door. He heard pitiful, guttural growls that were gradually drowned out by the onset of fresh lightning. Essex lingered there, briefly, listening to the pummeling grow more hectic. His heart pounded in his ears and he continued to cough, eyes watering and burning from the drifting remnant of smoke that filled the stairwell.

The pummeling weakened, then gradually died off. Essex nodded in satisfaction, and his smile was sardonic.

“Free,” he murmured. “You burden me no more, hideous beast.”

They made their way into the house. Madelyne hurried into the corridor, and he noticed she was bleeding from a wound in her temple, staining her coppery hair and starched cap crimson. “Doctor Essex! I smell smoke!”

“The tower. It’s ablaze,” he muttered. “Alert the villagers. My lab is gone.”

“Where’s… where’s Victor?” she demanded. She peered into the new being’s face and noticed his haggard condition, but she was relieved that he was alive. “What happened?”

“We won’t have to worry about pacifying Victor anymore,” he told her, pushing past her and forcing her to take two steps to each one of his. “Your charms won’t be wasted, however, my sweet. Where is Suggs?”

“Dead,” she said coldly.

“More coins for the undertaker and the grave digger,” he mused. She glared at his callous tone. “Go. Alert the village. The entire tower will be ablaze shortly.”

“The rain may calm it, Doctor.”

“There isn’t enough rain, Madelyne.” He gritted his teeth as they hurried for the lower levels of his home. “There will never be enough rain.”

 

*

Word of the blaze spread as rapidly as the flames themselves. Local farmers and hunters sped up the road by wagonloads, prepared with picks, pails and axes, and enormous bags of sand.

“Glory,” a tall, reed-thin man in rough garb exclaimed. The fire’s orange glow was reflected in his dark brown eyes and illuminated his face.

“It will come down, and it might take the bloody house,” another one remarked, elbowing him. “All the better. Good riddance to that heathen.”

“Rich heathen,” his friend corrected him. “He’ll build a new one upon the ashes of the first. Satan in his kingdom, if you ask me.”

“Perhaps he’ll join his family this night.”

“You lot, start working on the west side! Bring down that wall!” the constable warned them as he rode up. Both men grumbled but obeyed, moving forward with their axes. Rain poured down on them, soaking them to the skin as they worked on taming the blaze.

A lone figure hovered back, watching the commotion and the macabre, sinister dance of the flames as they licked up along the west wall of the tower and fanned out from the skylight as it shattered from the heat. Shards of glass rained down on the gathering crowd of helpers, but they kept working to save the estate. He was fascinated by the efforts of so many who held little more than grudging respect – and fear – for the owner of the manor, the good doctor.

Logan shook his head, wishing he had his pipe. He gradually made his way forward and helped unload bags of sand from the wagons.


	4. From the Ashes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Essex plays with his new toy. Tongues are set wagging in the village.

**From the Ashes**

Summary: Essex plays with his new toy. Tongues are set wagging in the village.

Author’s Note: Who, me? Tapestry syndrome? Perish the thought…

 

Essex gave the order to his hired crew to seal off the entrance to the tower; his reply was terse when they asked about his plans for the tower.

“Leave it.”

“Milord… it’s an eyesore. It’ll be a bloody blight on the landscape for your neighbors t’see when the sun rises upon it! At least let us demolish it, if you don’t want it rebuilt-“

“Do I not pay a generous wage?” The gangly crew leader scrubbed at his face with his palm, chafed.

“Er…certainly, Mr. Essex, but-“

“But. What.”

“Erm… well, then. We’ll fashion a nice wall, then, and we were thinking a strong, oak door-“

“Steel,” Essex hissed. His eyes… the builders restrained the urge to urinate on themselves, barely. “A steel door, and a false wall. It should look no different from the main corridor of the east wing. I expect it to be finished in forty-eight hours.” The crew leader paled, and his Adam’s apple bobbed roughly as he swallowed.

“Aye. Steel, lads! The strongest, finest steel! What are you lollygagging for, just scratching your arses and wasting Mr. Essex’s time? Go! NOW”

“Dr. Essex,” he corrected him, and a hint of a smirk played at the corner of his mouth.

“Certainly, Doctor! We’ll bring the welders in, and we’ll order the wallpaper from the little shop in Wungadore, it’s only a three-hour ride by carriage from here…”

“Details.” Essex waved his hand dismissively. “I don’t care for them.”

“Right! The builders scuffled off, unrolling the crumpled draft of the wing’s layout, their only working blueprint for the monumental task ahead of them.

Evil or not, they decided, Essex’s money, at least, was good.

*

 

Scabs. Of all the agonies inflicted upon him, Victor despised scabs the most.

They chafed. They itched. They burned mercilessly once he stopped scratching them, breaking open only to scab over again. The cool air bathed his exposed, raw skin as it slowly grew back, as his clothes were a lost cause.

He didn’t know how long he wandered, or when he lost sight of the road. Victor sought refuge in the woods, craving its dark recesses and shadows as his eyes slowly grew back, remaining sensitive to glare. He’d discarded what was left of his shabby boots. His tough soles needed little protection, owning the thickened padding of a feral, lupine predator.

He was a fearsome, gruesome sight, owning no shred of beauty, nor anything resembling a human trait. The flames welcomed him with their cruel embrace, consuming flesh all the way down to bare sinew and muscle. The rain beating through the skylight mocked him, its glistening, insubstantial drops hissing and evaporating as soon as they struck down. His last, fleeting thought, a final insult in his ordeal, was the realization that his master wanted him gone. In Victor’s stunted mind, it beat like a tattoo, not drowned out by the sounds of crackling flames and exploding windows.

_Glass_. Tinkling, brittle shards of glass…

He raised his head toward the eerie, bluish light above him, streaming inside the inferno, like Lucifer chained to the lake of fire, beseeching mercy. Victor roared in desperation, then staggered forward with the strength of a man who knows he’s lost, but who seeks to use his last breath in one final, meaningful act. He lunged for the discarded table and flipped it upright, climbing onto it. Flames licked up from his clothing, and his fingers spasmed from damage to his nerves, but he fought his way up to the window. Essex, strangely, built his laboratory with windows, confident that no one would be able to see inside his tower from such great height.

It was his folly, but it would be Victor’s _salvation_.

No one cared about the enormous crash of a body leaping through the window and shattering it. By the time the first group of villagers appeared, Victor had stumbled away in the dark. He found shelter a few meters away beneath a huge oak and collapsed. The teasing rain, much steadier now, came to him like a tardy, apologetic visitor, kissing his tortured body. His breathing was harsh and painful, forced out through the gaping hole that used to be his mouth, lips burned away. Victor smelled the pungent, damp earth, an unforgiving bed for the night.

It would have to do.

*

Logan packed his pipe expertly with musky-smelling tobacco as he sojourned in the darkened tavern, light in spirits and heavy in purse. He motioned to the barkeep, who handed him a long matchstick before resuming his task of wiping down the counter with a grubby towel. He exhaled the smoke in satisfied swirls and contemplated his tankard of ale.

 

"Bit damp out, still," Harry mused. Logan grunted.

 

"Been wallowing all day in the mud like a pig. Practically buryin' myself, tryin' to pull myself out."

 

"Thirsty work." Harry filled another stein from the enormous barrel and set it down beside him. Logan nodded his thanks. He laid out another silver coin, which Harry tucked into his apron pocket before moving on to another gentleman at the end of the bar.

 Harry's place wasn't where you found the toffs. Working men rested aching muscles after nearly endless hours in the mines, foundries and garment factories, often still covered in sweat and soot, bits of thread clinging to their clothes as they gulped their gin. Logan stepped over a miserable wretch slumped in the doorway as he came inside, one of Harry's less fortunate regulars. For some, quite literally, Harry's was home.

 Logan's life involved dispositioning the less fortunate to their final destination and rest in the hollowed earth. No one blamed him for being brittle, no one envied him, and no one dared wonder about the things he'd seen. Logan only lived in the village a few short years, never occupying anywhere long enough for more than one generation to remember him.

 The villagers tended to be suspicious, already distrustful of Essex and the exotic members of his household staff. His housekeeper, Madelyn, often drew whispered accusations of witchcraft, always seeming to know when anyone was watching her or sharing gossip; her cupid's bow mouth quirked in a knowing smile, gimlet green eyes twinkling upon contact. Essex's name and wealth protected everyone associated with him, even someone as unsettling as the haughty, titian-haired beauty.

 Logan knew that he fell into Madelyn's lot in that regard. A grave digger's life wasn't a glamorous one, and it took a special person to witness so much death unflinchingly. Logan lost his blush of youth and innocence sometime after the invention of the wheel.

 Logan had made the mistake of settling down before. It was a more idyllic time and place, when he was a less guarded and jaded man. He was a tenant farmer living in a tiny but well-built cottage. He rose at dawn and retired shortly after sunset, a man who preferred an orderly, consistent routine.

Rose captured his heart at first sight, his landlord's eldest daughter, quick witted, quick to laugh, and owning a tendency to duck her face into her exquisite red hair whenever he teased her. Their eyes met as she drew up a pail of water from the well. She stole a quick ladleful of cooling refreshment and wiped her rosy lips on the white cotton sleeve of her dress. Rose looked up from her drink just as he arrived to water the oxen who pulled his plow, and Logan was smitten.

Their wedding was frugal but well-attended. Her sisters wove pink roses into her hair for the occasion, and she took his breath away in a white silk dress. She carried a bouquet of baby’s breath and forget-me-nots. No man loved his wife more; Rose was his comfort, his confidante, and his rising sun.

 Logan's axe hung mid-air, about to swing down and cleave a log in two when Rose's sister ran into the yard to tell him that Rose fainted; he threw it aside and dashed into the cottage, where the medicine woman already waited, tutting and preparing to examine her. Rose peered up at him and smiled, but her pallor was gray. Logan was shooed unceremoniously from the house while Rose was examined, and he fretted and paced, panic making him break a cold sweat. 

The medicine woman gave him a smug grin as she came outside, and she planted her hand on her hip. "I imagine you two have been busy. You're going to be a father. Go kiss your wife, and get back to work." His mouth hung open for a moment. She punched him in the arm and gave him a shove toward the door, and he obeyed her injunction, kissing Rose soundly. His joy was complete.

 

Rose blossomed and grew radiant, round and absolutely ungraceful, waddling to the henhouse like a little duck. Logan’s senses, enhanced and keen, allowed him to hear the baby’s heartbeat as she slumbered; his large palm counted his son’s hearty kicks as they stretched the growing dome of his mother’s belly. Everything about Rose was different, her feminine scent was more ripe, and there was an appealing plumpness to her flesh. Her warm breath stirring his shaggy dark hair soothed him to sleep at night, accompanied by the stroke of her slender hands down his brawny back. Logan lived in awe of her, adoration made him obsess over her safety, over even the most minute threat.

 

She called up to him to offer him the water pail for a drink while he was up on the roof patching a leak. Logan’s hammer slipped, knocking loose a chunk of wood from the shingle. Splinters flew up into his face; he swore as their sharp edges scraped his cheek. Rose, startled, disturbed the contents of the pail, slopping water over her slippers.

 

“LOGAN! What happened?” She hissed in alarm as he peered over the edge of the roof to assure her he was okay, but thin rivulets of blood escaped the tiny wounds. 

“Just a damn fool swinging a hammer,” he told her. “Just a scratch, darlin’.” 

“You’re bleeding. Let me get you something to clean it-“

“I’m all right, Rose,” he insisted. “I’ll take that drink, now.” Her expression was still doubtful, even fretful as he descended the ladder. But her intake of breath was sharp as he reached the ground and grasped the ladle to help himself. His blood now stained the sleeve of his shirt, threatening to ruin it, but the cuts… were no longer there.

“Sweetheart… your skin, it’s…” She reached out to touch it gingerly, and he didn’t flinch. “…healed?”

 

“Good as new,” he agreed. “Don’t worry.” But he could tell she was; her eyes were filled with confusion, and she quickly withdrew her hand.

 

“That’s not… normal.”

 

“It is for _me_ ,” he shrugged, but he felt her concern, and he turned away, unable to meet her eyes when she looked at him like that. “You shouldn’t worry your pretty little head over a little nick like that, Rose.”

 

“I… I’m not, it’s just, Logan…” Her hands fussed with her skirt to avoid fidgeting. “I suppose I worry about _you_.”

 

“Rose, I can’t help who I am.”

 

“Logan.” She came to him as he tossed the ladle disconsolately back into the pail with a low splash. “That’s your blessing. I won’t question it.” She embraced him from behind, reaching as far around his waist as her belly would allow, and he felt her soft cheek against his neck, smelling like lavender soap. “I love everything about you. Never doubt that.” His hands covered hers, stroking her fingers, and he exhaled a shaky breath. “But we’ll need to be careful.”

 

“I know that.”

 

“It’s still a gift.”

 

She left it unsaid that the villagers might hold a different opinion.

 

 

Logan hadn’t learned his lesson well enough to stay off the roof. Fate wouldn’t be kind enough to remind him when it would have made all the difference in the world – _his_ world.

 

A relatively mild winter gave way to a vicious spring storm that threatened to destroy the first new buds. The shutters of their modest cottage banged and rattled, threatening to splinter. Wind howled and tore at the branches outside, making the trees dance and toss like drunken wedding guests. Rose was still in the henhouse, rounding up the flock and securing them in their pens.

 

“Rose! ROSE! Come inside!” Logan roared.

 

“All right!” she called back. The winds whipped her hair and skirts, buffeting her and nearly knocking her down. She half-ran, being mindful not to stumble. Logan met her halfway, eyes squinting against the damp, fierce gusts. His black hair was growing plastered to his scalp, and his shirt was nearly transparent and clinging to his chest.

 

“Get inside,” he huffed. “I have to finish the roof, or we won’t sleep dry.”

 

“No!” she cried. “It’s too slick up there. If you’d finished it earlier –“

 

“Had to finish chopping the wood,” he argued. “We’ll be warm enough, Rose, but if you want to be dry tonight, then I need to finish the roof. Go inside, now.”

 

“Not without you!” she shouted over the gale. But he wouldn’t argue with her. Logan grasped her arm and hustled her inside the cottage. The door flew back out of his grasp and slammed back against the wall, but he forced it shut and locked it firmly. They both stood with heaving chests, dripping on the floor and staring each other down.

 

“It won’t take long,” he insisted. “We don’t know how long this rain will last, Rose.”

 

“It’s getting dark. Let me put another pot under it, and I’ll fix us supper.”

 

“Save your pot for supper, then,” he said with a shrug. Logan tugged her to him and kissed her, silencing her complaints, and he almost smirked against her lips as she sighed into it. She looked pleasantly dazed until he turned from her and headed out the door. “Lock up after me.”

 

“What? GET BACK HERE!”

 

“Soon enough.” The door slammed after him, and she restrained the urge to follow him, smothering a curse as she laid down the bolt. Rose shook her head over his foolishness and went to find her pots, bringing one down from the hook with an angry clank. _Oh, how he frustrated her_. Rose set about lighting a fire in the grate, normally his chore, and she started onions and celery sizzling in the skillet as she sliced some potatoes, scarce from their winter stores. She fretted as she heard him moving about on the roof, and eventually she heard hollow banging. Tap, tap, tap-tap, taptaptaptaptapBANGBANGBANG… The leak in their ceiling continued to drip in narrow, broken streams as she cooked.

 

Logan’s skin smarted from the chilling winds and stinging rain as it pelted every inch of his stocky frame. He braced himself against the battering gale and continued to replace the rotted, broken shingles, finding the faulty boards. He wouldn’t have his wife catching a chill.

 

“LOGAN!” His neighbor from the next property over, William, came riding up in his wagon. He was clad in a sturdy coat and a battered felt hat. “I came here to help finish that roof. Think you waited long enough, man?”

 

“Bring your lazy arse up here from that wagon, Will, and help me, then!” Logan paused to mop his brow, then continued to tear off the rotting shingle. William shook his head as he tied up his horses and headed for the ladder. “Bring up some more nails. From that bucket.”

 

“Have another hammer?”

 

“Aye. In the shed.”

 

William clambered up the ladder, swaying slightly from a sudden gust. “Shit!” he hissed. “Hell of a storm. Just came out of nowhere. My girls wanted to go on a picnic.”

 

“Let them picnic in front of the fireplace,” Logan suggested. “Hand me those shingles.” Logan called down loudly to Rose, “Fix another place at the table, Rose!”

 

“She doesn’t have to,” William argued, but something warm to drink appealed to him. “Maybe just a cup of tea.”

 

“Or a toddy.”

 

“Rum?”

 

“Rum.” Logan grinned. William winked.

 

“Then let her fix me a place at the table.”

 

They worked together for nearly a half an hour, growing chilled to the bone. Logan’s clothes were sodden, and he felt his fingers turning into prunes, but they nailed the new shingles down fast, and the roof would be sound for at least another year. “Enough of this shitty night,” Logan grumbled, scraping his slick sheaves of hair back from his brow. “Let me thank you with some of that rum, Will.”

 

“Might take you up on Rose’s stew, after all,” he agreed as he reached for the leftover nails and hammer. “Hold that ladder steady for me- shit! LOGAN! **_LOGAN_**!”

 

 

 

Rose’s heartbeat skipped when she heard Will’s startled cry and the stumbling thumps overhead, too heavy for her husband’s hammer strikes. “Logan?” she called out cautiously. “Logan!” She removed the skillet from the burner and wiped her hands on her apron as she jerked open the door, hurrying out as quickly as she could manage.

 

She drew up short at the sight of her husband’s body, lying twisted and broken on the ground. The rain soaked his clothing, and his hair was slicked back from his face, a stunned, gaping mask. Rose shook her head and clapped her hands over her mouth, choking back a cry. Tears sparked and burned her eyes, blurring her vision as she ran to him, kneeling over him. “LOGAN! Noooo, nononono…” Her hands shook as she reached for him, caressing his cool cheek. “Damn you,” she grated through her teeth, “Logan, I told you not to go up on that roof, you have to-to come…” William climbed down gingerly from the roof, and his look was filled with horror.

 

“Rose… he was just coming down for supper,” William told her as he bent over them, but cold dread gripped him as he stared down at his fallen friend and the unnatural angle of his neck. Logan’s dark brown eyes stared sightlessly up at them, and Rose wept over him, holding his hand against her cheek. She sobbed and kissed his chapped, rough knuckles. His expression held shock, mouth gaping slightly, as if he were beseeching them with the question, “What happened?” Rose stroked his hair lovingly, as if he were a fragile child in need of soothing.

 

“Wake up,” she urged. “Logan, get up!”

 

She didn’t notice Logan’s other hand twitch briefly where it lay in the mud. William tried to separate them.

 

“Come inside, Rose. I will go across the way to get Robert, he can help me move-“

 

“NO!” she screamed up at him. “Logan, GET UP!” she demanded angrily. “Come inside for supper, Logan! GET UP!” She slapped his chest futilely, trying to rouse him. William winced at how immovable she was, at her stubbornness in the face of tragedy. Her damp dress clung to her body, plastered over the swell of her belly. Droplets of mud splashed up onto her, staining the garment and speckling her skin. “William and I are waiting on you to come to supper!”

 

“I’ll get Robert,” he decided finally, even though it broke his heart to leave her. Her sobs followed in his wake.

 

“Please, Logan, please, please… get up,” she told him. “I need you, sweetheart. Oh, Logan, my Logan…” She was inconsolable. She damned the rain, the leaky roof, and the heavens for the loss of her husband, her rock. This isn’t happening, shrieked a thousand voices in her head, drowning out the sounds of the gale around her. She lowered her head to his chest, and strands of her hair brushed his face, clinging to his pale cheek and twisted neck. His arms betrayed her, lying limply on the ground instead of automatically enveloping her.

 

Her voice reached him, like a leaf drifting down to land on the surface of a pond, disturbing it with perfect ripples. His mind was a jumble of dark chaos as his nerve endings slowly began to reconnect, trying once again to find the harmony and function of his nervous system. His spirit swayed and froze where it drifted above them, watching the scene with despair and disbelief.

 

_No. Rose_ … Logan watched the rain beat down on them both, and he cried out in defiance. _I’m not ready! I’m not ready to leave you, Rose! Do you hear me, Lord?_ He felt something pulling on him, heard something calling out to him, and he was drawn to it, but he steeled himself, digging in and anchoring himself to the devastating sadness and pleas pouring out from his beloved wife. She wouldn’t let him go. Logan felt nothing of his body, he was unnerved by the immaterial, ethereal feel of having no substance, of being completely unbound. Darkness was enveloping him, and he drifted on it, feeling himself almost swept away by the sweet nothingness, about to plunge headlong into oblivion.

 

Logan roared in defiance, agonized by the thought of a future without Rose and unwilling to leave her unsheltered and unprotected. He reached for her, trying to cling to her, her name on his lips…

 

Rose’s sobs ceased at the first, faint heartbeat beneath her cheek. She gasped and lifted her head, fingers tightening around Logan’s hand. “Beloved?” she rasped. She stared down into his face, which looked much the same, but his body briefly spasmed, the movement so slight yet unmistakable. “Logan?” His head jerked briefly, another flicker of movement, and her breath caught in her throat. She watched him for several agonizing moments before his fingers clenched around her hand, another spasmodic movement, but surely… it _had_ to be intentional!

 

He fought the grip of Death’s cold, sharp fingers as they wrapped around him, fought his sweet, smug whispers and assurances that if not now, then certainly, _soon_ as Logan reached for Rose. He followed her voice, back through fear, back to pain, sensing that his shell was broken, damaged, yet still waiting for him. His soul struggled and reared, grappling with Death, defying his unshakable stranglehold and seductive pull. He glared into his hollow, black eyes and grinning maw. Death shrugged.

 

_You will know pain, unfathomable and everlasting as the price for your escape today. You lose everything with your victory today, James Howlett. Love slows your journey home to me, binding you to this mortal coil. Love is the very thing that will break you, and you will curse the very life you cling to… forever._

_So be it_. Logan watched Rose longingly, saw the burst of hope as she touched him, her pleas gaining strength and volume, even as William and Robert returned with a wagon to take his remains away. _She’s my soul. She’s my heart_.

 

Death sighed. _How often have I heard those words? Once again, this is where I throw up my hands, resigned to come and steal your spirit away another day, knowing you’ve still got some fight left in you. Heed me now, James. Death isn’t something to defeat, only to delay. I feel your pain. No one understands pain more than I do_. Death’s fingers curled around Logan’s shoulder, almost companionably as he continued to whisper into his ear. _Why treat me like I’m the enemy? I’m privy to every wound, physical or heartfelt. I know every stain on your spirit and hear every curse, every sob, and every promise. Every promise is empty to me._

_I ain’t gonna promise ya a damn thing. I’m not ready. Rose needs me. You won’t stand in the way of me going back to her._

_Bold words_. Death sighed, then chuckled. _I know the path that stretches before you, how long, rocky and unyielding it will be under your vulnerable feet. I will never leave you, James, even as you defy me today. I will be the last voice you hear before you sleep. I will drift out of you on every breath and stain everything you touch. You will still know Love, but never without the ultimate risk of-_

_Rose is callin’ me to dinner_ , Logan interrupted, done with patience and threats. _We’re done here_. He reached for Death’s hand and removed it from his shoulder, even though the biting chill never left him from the contact. If anything, it lingered, raw and insatiable, and Logan wondered if he would ever feel warmth again, but he heard Rose calling out to him, could smell the saline of her tears mingling with the driving rain and damp, pungent earth. He felt hands pulling at him, attempting to hoist him up from the ground, even as Logan felt himself being sucked down, down, falling hundreds of miles in a matter of seconds-

 

Rose heard his strangled gasp and the sickening cracks of his cervical vertebrae realigning and snapping back together, feeling his body spasm and flop. His limbs splashed down into the mud, spattering her again. That startled William and Robert into dropping him, their expressions stunned and horrified. The three of them froze as they watched the gruesome, yet wondrous return to life Logan made, against all logic and explanation even their God could offer. Logan’s pupils dilated, then retracted. His muscles spasmed and twitched as breath forced its way into his lungs, nostrils flaring with every hungry draft. His skin gradually shifted from gray back to pink, blooming with fresh blood circulation. His brown eyes flitted over their faces, taking them in, helpless to cure them of what they saw or the anguish he’d caused.

 

Instead, he reached up and stroked Rose’s cheeks, wiping away the dirty tear tracks. “It’s all right, darlin’,” he rasped up at her. “No need t’shout. I ain’t goin’ anywhere.”

 

*

 

William and Robert refused Rose’s repeated offer of dinner. They were too unsettled. Logan’s hackles rose at the sight of their retreating backs, with occasional glances back at the Howlett cottage as they rode off. Logan and Rose sat down to dinner once they changed into dry clothes, but neither of them had much appetite for the hearty meal; as Logan dragged a bit of his roll through the gravy, his hand shook. Rose wordlessly cleared his plate and led him to their room. She nodded for him to sit on the bed, and she stepped between his knees, accepting him fully when he reached for her.

 

“You were gone,” she whispered.

 

“I know,” he agreed against her chest, but he couldn’t manage anymore words. His body convulsed in low, silent sobs as her fingers raked through his thick, coarse hair. He felt her kisses, offering little comfort and no more explanation than he had himself for what had transpired. He could only cling to her, treasure her, the sweet, precious price of his damnation.

 

 

The next few days were tenuous, and they knew going “back to normal” was a foolish dream between them. Logan regretted taking Rose on the wagon to the market. Their neighbors and familiar shopkeepers grew hushed, smiles evaporating as they rode into town and hitched up their horses while they went to dicker and trade. Rose kept her usual smile in place, but she felt a current of hostility and fear as mothers ushered their children past quickly, shielding their babes’ faces beneath their blankets as she passed. Logan chafed and scowled darkly. His knuckles itched, but Rose’s hand on his shoulder forced him to relax, if only for her benefit.

 

They went into the textile store, where Rose quickly selected a dusty green calico sprigged with tiny blue flowers. Logan added a tin of tobacco and a sack of sugar to their order. Saul, the shopkeeper, eyed them warily as he loaded jars of pickles onto the front shelf behind his cash till. “Weathered the storm all right, Saul?” Logan inquired. “Just got the roof patched in time.”

 

“Managed fine,” Saul growled. “That all for you two?”

 

“I could use some flour,” Rose added shyly. “It’s my baking day.”

 

“Go ahead and get it, Rose,” Logan told her gruffly, but his eyes never left Saul’s face. The portly business owner wrapped up the bolt of fabric and packed the sugar into a burlap sack, looking tense and anxious for the two of them to leave his store.

 

“Will said you had a nasty spill. Fair scared him out of about ten years of life.”

 

“Oh. _Only_ ten.” Logan’s voice was dry.

 

“Bit of luck, the two of you standing here right now.”

 

“More luck than I deserve, poor bastard like me,” Logan shrugged. Rose hesitated for a moment before laying the flour on the counter. Saul’s watery gray eyes flicked over her briefly, and he shook his head before resuming the task of packing their goods.

 

“Five dollars.” Logan dug into his pocket for the money and slapped it on the counter, returning the change to his pocket along with the tobacco tin.

 

“No one’s _that_ lucky, Logan,” Saul warned. “ _No_ one.”

 

“Goodbye, Saul,” Rose told him hastily as she took up the bolt of fabric.

 

Saul watched them leave through the window, counting his jars of pickles and trying to shake the sense of unease that settled over him. Rose’s waddling steps chilled him. She looked about due. Logan helped her up into the wagon, and the townsfolk cut them a wide berth as they pulled away. Saul winced as he heard a woman’s strident voice shout, “FREAKS!” Saul felt something icy and dark trickle down his spine. Bad things loomed ahead for the tenant farmer and his wife.

 

It was the last time he would lay eyes on them.

 

*

 

Rose had just finished tying a knot in the line of neat stitches where she’d sewn on the pocket of her new apron, when the riders showed up. She saw torches looming in the darkness as she peered through the gap in the curtains. “Logan,” she hissed. “Who’s that outside?” He pulled her away from the window, shoving her behind him, and his eyes narrowed dangerously.

 

“That ain’t any company I remember inviting, darlin’. Go. Go back to our room. Get under the bed.”

 

“Logan… please. Can we make it to the horses?” Cold fear seized her, and he hated how it haunted her green eyes. Logan shook his head.

 

“No. They’re too close. Just do as I say. I can’t have ya out in the open, Rose.”

 

“Maybe they just want us to leave-“

 

“That’s not why they came here, darlin’. Tryin’ ta go ain’t gonna help, now.”

 

“Logan!” He shushed her with a finger against her lips, shaking his head.

 

“It’s already too late. I’m gonna hold ‘em off. They’re not gonna get to you.”

 

“Please, sweetheart, maybe we can-“

 

Logan shoved her inside the bedroom and hissed, “Lock yerself inside, darlin’!” before she could argue any further. She heard his angry, thumping footsteps and his rough jerk of the pantry door, where he kept his rifle. Rose sobbed a low croon, all she allowed herself before she obeyed him, crawling gingerly under the bed, shimmying on her back to protect the baby.

 

Logan pulled the curtains and barricaded the windows, using the side tables and kitchen chairs. He quickly extinguished the fire in the grate before he headed outside, and he locked the front door behind him. His expression was flat and resolute when the entourage of riders approached the gate around his property from the gravel road. He was disappointed, but perhaps not surprised to see Will and Robert among them, faces grim and bearing torches and rope. Father Stevens, garbed in his black priest’s habit, looked ill at ease. He clutched a vial of holy water and a rosary in his fist, his leather-bound Bible under his arm that held the reins.

 

“I don’t know what business you think you have with me and mine at this hour of the night, but I don’t remember inviting you onto my property,” Logan roared. His rifle, already cleaned and loaded, gleamed in the moonlight, the flames from their torches reflected in its surface as they drew near and surrounded him.

 

“It’s my property,” burly Mike Hibbons announced, reminding Logan that he only paid his rent with his crops. “And its been decided that you’re trespassing, now.”

 

“Who decided?”

 

“Our Heavenly Father,” Father Stevens insisted simply. “These men, your neighbors, bore witness to your trickery. William told me that you had no heartbeat. He said that your neck was broken.”

 

“Seems he was mistaken,” Logan shrugged, cocking his rifle. “We’ve always paid you on time, Hibbons.”

 

“I don’t have dealings with demons,” he retorted. “Your kind’s not welcome here, hell-spawn!”

 

“The hell you say!” Logan cried. “We’re as god-fearing as anyone else around these parts! You all came to my wedding! I’d have gone up in flames when ya gave us yer blessing, Stevens!” The priest shuddered and shook his head. He reached into his satchel and pulled out a large, silver cross.

 

“Get thee behind me, in the name of the Lord, vile creature!”

 

“Ya’ve lost yer damn mind, man. And ya’ve upset my wife. I can’t forgive that.”

 

“Where is she?” William demanded.

 

“None of yer damned business, Will. Just turn yer horse around, and I’ll pretend this never happened the next time we meet for ale and cards.”

 

“We gave up cards,” Robert informed him. “Tell her to come out here, man. Don’t make this harder than it already is.”

 

“You were ready to comfort Rose and bury me when you thought I was dead. You would have given me blessings and prayed for my soul if I had taken my last breath,” Logan pointed out. “Some friends you are, eh? Loyal as a man could ask for. Yer not gonna get to my wife. Not while I live.”

 

“We’ve come to finish the job, and to make sure it’s done properly this time,” William told him. “You’ve deceived us, all this time.”

 

“You’re a waste of flesh, man. And a waste of good rum.” He sighed for a moment, then Logan’s finger pulled the trigger. He discharged a load of buckshot directly into the chest of the man who had once been his closest friend. There was no help for it. Williams stared down dumbly at the spreading stain on his ruined shirt, then at Logan in disbelief before he collapsed. Logan mentally counted how many shots he had left, knowing it wouldn’t put a dent in the roughly two dozen men circling his cottage.

 

Rose gasped at the sound of gunshots, even though she could barely hear her husband’s words. She knew the time for him to reason with them was over, but all she could do was utter prayers and pleas for their family’s safety. She almost didn’t recognize Logan the moment he turned her away from the window. He was hard, vicious and determined, nothing like the gentle, caring man she loved. But he had changed, precious bits of him dying away and being replaced by something else since the moment he awakened during the storm. Logan was forged and hewn in fire, unbreakable and razor-sharp. Rose did not want to witness the lesson he would teach any man who tried to take or harm what was his. Yet she did precisely that from the dark recess between their marriage bed and her carefully swept floor. Her ears told her things she never wanted to know, and her heart pounded in her chest. She smothered a scream at the sound of another gunshot, tears streaming down her cheeks.

 

The horses neighed and reared at the rounds of buckshot, almost compromising their riders. Logan stood ready, keeping his cottage at his back. Rose was depending on him. Father Stevens dismounted his horse, and Hibbons followed closely with his torch and a rifle of his own. “Take yourself where yer needed, Father. It ain’t here.”

 

“Wherever there is sin to be fought, the Holy Father guides my steps,” he told him coldly. “I refute thee!”

 

“Well, I refute _thee_!” Logan growled. He set down the rifle, not wanting to waste any shots if he didn’t need to, and the men cringed at the sudden, sharp tearing sound and sharp click, then gasped. Logan stood before them in wide stance, crouched and leering. His teeth were bared, displaying his slightly elongated canines, a trait none had noticed about him before, but most chilling were the appendages… they could only call them talons, long, bony, wretched things that gleamed in the firelight that were protruding from his hands. They were stained in blood, the stark white phalanges looking both deadly and thirsty, and in that moment, every man in Logan’s presence began to pray for their own safety.

 

They charged him, nevertheless.

 

_Death isn’t something to defeat, only to delay. I feel your pain. No one understands pain more than I do_. The words lingered in his consciousness as his yard became a blur of violence and noise. Logan grunted as he swung at Robert’s horse, knocking the beast out from under him. He fell upon his traitorous friend, jerking him up by his collar and plunging his claws into his chest. The men behind him sickened at the sight of the blades protruding out from his back through his shirt before Logan retracted them with a sharp clacking sound. His expression… was lost, no shred of humanity left, only feral eyes glowing amber. Logan cocked his head, beckoning to them as he gave the beast inside him its head. He roared and ran at them. The horses whinnied and pranced, skittering at the sight of the feral creature that now smelled like a threat. Two of their riders were thrown to the ground, where Logan quickly finished them off. Flanders, the local blacksmith, attempted to come at him with a coiled leather whip; Logan jerked at its sharp sting as it cracked across his back, sending the sharpness of a thousand knives over his oversensitive, enhanced nerves. Logan doubled back, hissing in pain, and he grasped the whip’s end before he could draw it back again. Logan twisted it around his fist and yanked, shoulder muscles bulging and straining with the effort of tearing Flanders from his fine roan mount. Flanders regretted his fast grip on the whip as he hit the ground, earning a melody of bruises and abraded flesh. His head was still wringing when it connected with Logan’s boot.

 

He moved faster than a wolf, and as viciously as a beast wounded by one shot. Death glowed in his eyes, and he heard its silky voice purring in his ear. _I will drift out of you on every breath and stain everything you touch._ Blood flecked his face and hair, ruining the good lawn shirt that Rose had made him as a betrothal gift. Flanders drowned in his own blood after Logan ripped out his throat, his hand reaching up briefly to signal the others to fall back, then giving one last twitch before falling limply to the ground. Logan resumed his post at the door with his shotgun, but his next shot missed. The rider, a young snot in a leather hat and carrying a knotted rope jeered at him. “Yer a damned animal, Howlett! We’re gonna put you down and clean this town of yer filth!” He lassoed him neatly and attempted to drag Logan off his feet. Logan stumbled but dug in, fighting for leverage. Another rider attempted the maneuver, but his rope was met by Logan’s claws, and he severed the hemp with a single cleave. Logan’s impaired footing didn’t stop his trigger finger. The boy jerked the rope and his horse shied back to drag him further, but Logan’s shot found its home between the boy’s brows, his unwhiskered face exploding in a blast of red. Logan couldn’t mourn the loss of a life so soon after it had begun when his wife’s was on the line, dependent on Logan’s ability to drive the predators from the door. Logan sliced through the rope, freeing himself, and he sized up the rest of his attackers. They were men he called neighbors, nearly his kin. Logan had helped them raise barns and repair their houses, had helped them find lost cattle and protected their children from the harms of day-to-day life around the farms and wells, provided them with fresh, plentiful shares of his crops, and comforted them when family members took sick or passed from this earth.

 

All he could think of were Rose’s tears and of her precious burden, the feel of those tiny kicks beneath his palms, and those men became his prey. Father Stevens uncorked the sacramental vial and flung the precious drops at Logan’s front door before he could rush at him, and he flung them directly into the tenant farmer’s blood-streaked face. “I refute thee! Back to the pit with you, and with your miserable spawn!”

 

“To hell with you, Father, if ya think yer gettin’ anywhere near my family,” Logan growled. Father Stevens felt his bladder weaken beneath Logan’s amber gaze. The feral sucked his teeth, licking his canines and cocking his head. “Come to share the good word?”

 

“I’ve come not to bring peace, but to raise the sword!” Father Stevens cried, but before he could promise any further destruction, the sheriff leaned down from his horse and jerked him aside.

 

“Save your prayers, Father,” he advised. “We’ll clean out this filth the old-fashioned way.” With that, he lowered his torch to Logan’s shutter, lighting it ablaze. Logan’s world froze, and he saw nothing but Rose, moments from their life together tumbling together in a rapid, desperate jumble. Her hands reaching for his to feel the baby. The moment he placed the simple silver band on her finger. The first meal she ever prepared for him. The first time they shared a pew at church. The feel of her against his back when they shared a horseback ride to her father’s home the night that he proposed. Her low, sweet whimpers of his name the first time they made love, fingers entwined and moonlight bathing her perfect skin. The moment she told him her heart belonged to him. The orange flames licked up the length of the shutter and crackled as they fed on the cottage’s sturdy planks.

 

“NO!” Logan’s denial was a savage bark. The sheriff waved the torch at him, thrusting down at him with it in an attempt to catch Logan’s clothing, but Logan snarled at him, realizing that he needed to stop toying with them, and that every second was precious. He silently asked the sheriff’s mount to forgive him, and he stabbed the dappled gray stallion in the chest. The creature’s scream sounded more human than any of them could endure as it shied and stumbled aside, collapsing and taking the cruel lawman with it. Black smoke billowed up to the starry sky and infiltrated the cottage, quickly filling the kitchen and sitting room.

 “Get thee behind me! Get thee be-“ Father Stevens’ injunctions were cut off by the bony claws that ripped through his vocal cords, all further verses and prayers forever silenced by the monster he’d helped to create.

“I’m right here in front of ya,” Logan promised, resigned, “ya damned hypocrite.” He looked down upon the man who threatened his family and spat on him before he moved on. Logan caught the sheriff before he could take to his heels, and he jerked back as the gunshot tore through him, burning a path through his sternum. “Is that…*kaaargh*… the best ya got?” He wasn’t even staggered, and through the gaping tears in his shirt, the sheriff saw the flesh, initially blown away from the wound, slowly spread and knit itself back together, pushing out the gleaming bullet. The sheriff pumped another round into him, cocking it to chamber the next shot, but Logan slapped the gun from his hand. “Lay down,” Logan growled.

 

“To hell with you!” the sheriff cried.

 “LAY DOWN!” Logan smothered the man in his unrelenting grip, wrapped his hand around the back of his head, and twisted it until he heard the bones snap. He threw the man aside like a rag doll. The flames rose up to his carefully patched roof, and the men around him gagged on the odors of the acrid smoke, ashes and particulates drifting up to choke them. A couple of errant stragglers rode over to his barn and lit it up, wanting to be thorough in their mission. Logan heard the screaming livestock inside, mourning them, guilty that he’d wrought their destruction.

 He took up his shotgun and fired twice, bringing them both down. He hated himself for what he had to do, but he was resolute. Rose. He needed to get to Rose, his soul cried, but the beast knew there was no safe harbor for his wife and child while the men on his property still drew breath. They would see her, and they would take her from him. He heard her high-pitched screams inside, and his decision became impossible.

 

He turned and kicked down the door. He was nearly blinded by smoke, but he ran for the pantry and found a case of ammunition. He quickly reloaded his gun, and he headed for the bedroom, knowing he risked failure if he didn’t get to her soon enough. He kicked down that door, too, and he heard Rose’s coughing and sobbing, seeing her pale hand reaching out from under the bed. Logan reached for the foot of the bed and heaved, tossing it off of her. He reached for one of the discarded blankets and wrapped her in it, noticing how pallid she looked. Logan gathered her to him and broke out the bedroom window, knowing his home was a lost cause; he ignored the sharp slivers that bit into his flesh as he cleared them from the frame before he lifted Rose up and pushed her through the opening. She tumbled to the ground, collapsing in a coughing heap. He climbed out after her, slapping out the flames where the blanket had caught fire. Logan briefly checked her over; her skin was smudged in ashes and her hair was filthy, but she was whole.

“Logan,” she choked. “Don’t… no more…”

“It’s gotta end, darlin’,” he apologized. His eyes were an eerie amber, and he was soaked in blood, his hair standing in peaks and tufts. “And it will.” He kissed her brow, breathing in her scent one last time before he rounded the side of the house, rifle ready. Outside, she heard their voices and commotion more clearly, heard low cries of suffering and her husband’s growls of rage. Her fingers curled in the cool grass and dirt as Rose oriented herself. She gradually crawled away from her burning house, completely vulnerable.

She heard the gunshots, and despair stabbed through her with each one, feeling her husband’s humanity slipping away. She mourned the man she loved as surely as if he had died of a broken neck, yet she understood him. His territory and his pack were threatened, and he’d responded in kind. She knew she’d married a man of strong, unshakable convictions for whom things were usually black and white. Rose knew they didn’t live in a perfect world, but her journey was a safer one, in her mind, with James Logan Howlett at her side, a man with a bold, easy laugh who only hated liars or anyone who was mean to their wife, child, horse or mutt. There was no returning to who he was, that, she knew. The gunshots and screams would haunt her sleep if they survived that night. She wondered if their son would tell his own little ones about the night that Grandpa threw Grandma through the bedroom wi-

The cock of a pistol caught her attention, and she stared up into the sheriff’s deputy’s frightened eyes. His expression was disbelieving, but triumphant. “She’s here!” he called out over his shoulder.

“No,” she pleaded. “Please, don’t.”

“You’re carrying that filthy bastard’s spawn. You laid down with that… that thing,” he spat, disgust dripping from his voice.

“Logan’s a good man,” Rose railed back. “He never did anything to any of you!”

 

“The hell you say!” he scoffed, but his voice held a hint of hysteria. “He’s just torn us apart! Just one man,” he told her. “Only a lousy animal has claws like that, and teeth like his,” he told her. His hands shook as he continued to aim his pistol at her, mere inches from her brow.

 

“You’ve done him more wrong this night, disturbing his peace, invading and destroying his home! You’re all monsters, d’you hear me? You’re a MONSTER!” He shook his head and raised his hand, whipping her soundly with his pistol. She cried out at the blow, pain exploding across her temple.

 

Logan looked up from the man he was eviscerating, hearing his wife’s cry. He shifted focus quickly, leaving the invader crawling and mewling in the dust and smoke. Turning his back was a mistake, one he would regret soon enough.

 

He followed her voice and scent to the deputy, watching him loom over his fallen wife. Rose’s eyes were drowsy as he swam into her line of sight, but he lifted a finger to his lips, just as the deputy lifted his pistol, cocking it. His claws clicked as they extended, and the deputy felt a rush of hot breath against his nape just before three talons ripped through him, just as he was taunting Logan’s wife.

 

“You let that animal rut with you, didn’t you, you-“ He staggered back, and Logan didn’t retract his claws immediately, letting them carry the taller, leaner man’s weight, seemingly hoisting him like a puppet against his knuckles.

 

“Ya sick fuck. Ya don’t use that language around my wife.”

 

“Logan!” Rose cried.

 

“I’m sorry, darlin’,” he offered genuinely, and he looked so tired, so full of shame for the things she had to see and hear. He stared down into the deputy’s face, still twisted and gaping, choking for breath as a curl of blood slipped from the corner of his mouth. “She’s a lady,” he informed him, before he pulled his claws back into their sheathes and let him drop to the ground with a thud. Rose struggled to her feet, gripping Logan’s hand, and she embraced him with a smothered sob.

 

“Please, no more, Logan…don’t let go,” she pleaded.

 

“I’m not done yet, darlin’.”

 

“No more,” she argued, tears dampening his neck. “I beg you, sweetheart. Don’t let go of me!”

 

“Rose-“

 

BANG!!!

 

He felt her jerk in his arms as the bullet tore through her spine. The momentum made him stumble, and she went limp in his arms. His eyes dilated, having calmed, finally, from their hectic amber to their customary brown, but his pupils grew so enlarged now that they were nearly black. “No… nonononononono… Rose… please, darlin’…” He clung to her, obeying her words, too late for it to help. He crooned to her, stroking her rich red hair back from her face as the light began to fade from her eyes.

 

“No…more,” she rasped. Her words slurred around the blood that began to trickle from her mouth. “You’re… my rock. You’re… my love,” she whispered.

 

“Forever,” he sobbed. Tears spilled down his cheeks, and he glanced back at the man approaching him with the smoking gun. “Give me a moment. Ya’ve done yer damage.” The man shrugged, satisfied for the moment to watch Rose bleed out.

 

“This town’s full of good people, people who can’t afford the likes of freaks like you roaming among us, staining all of us with your filth.”

 

“I forgive him this,” Rose told Logan. “And I forgive you. I love you, Logan. All of you.” Her hand drifted to her belly. “I’ve named him James. I… I’ll tell him about his father.”

 

“No… oh, God, please, no… Rose, don’t leave me. Don’t.”

 

“Love… you, forev…” Her eyes no longer saw him.

 

“Guess she ain’t like you,” the shooter remarked coldly. He cocked his gun at Logan again.

 

“She was better than all of you, every last one of you pieces of shit,” Logan said gravely. “I hope you kissed your wife and family goodbye tonight.”

 

“Why? I’m the one holding the gun!”

 

Logan took no satisfaction in ripping out the man’s heart, despite the three rounds he pumped into his chest as he approached. It meant he had to lay Rose down on the grass. When he returned to her, her skin had already gone cold.

 

*

 

Logan lingered long enough for one more ale. He slid another coin across the counter to Harry, who automatically slid it back.

 

“No. This one’s on the house. You look like you needed it, old man.”

 

“Who’re you callin’ ‘old man?’” Logan accused, but he allowed himself a smirk when Harry winked at him. The barkeep had grizzled brows and graying temples, but Logan knew he had several decades on him, not a detail he cared to share. Gray hair slowly infiltrated his black waves, and Logan’s skin was slightly weathered, but it was still firm and taut, a fine array of lines fanning out from the corners of his eyes. His face was angular, with a square, stubborn jaw and a hard mouth that had forgotten how to smile. His body was still brawny and bulging with muscle, despite an occupation that would have worn down most men like waves against rock. Those brown eyes were so ancient, but they never lied, even if they didn’t let everyone in. Few called Logan friend, but keeping to himself kept the tongues from wagging, didn’t it?

 

Logan made his way home, this time a tiny cabin that didn’t boarder anyone else’s property, out in the hollers. He heard the low growls behind the door as he unlocked it, and Logan growled back at his mutt, a former stray that he named Buck. “Think yer a watchdog?” Logan joked as the mongrel wagged his tail and whined for attention. Logan scratched behind his ears and opened up the cloth napkin of scraps he’d brought back from the inn, which Buck made short work of while Logan removed his outer garb. He hung up his filthy coat and cap and shucked his boots after stamping them on the front mat. Logan built a fire for himself and then settled back into his favorite chair, propping his feet on the tiny stool he’d built. It wasn’t the home he’d made with Rose, but it provided him a roof and a place to lay his head.

 

It was a pity that sleep always eluded him. Death and the demons of his past kept Logan company as soon as he blew out his lantern.

 

*

 

The new being woke to the sound of low music playing, drifting through the walls to his sumptuous suite. It was a low, haunting melody, mysteriously beautiful. He stretched and struggled free of the bedclothes and sat up. He stared down at the strange dressings wrapped around his wrists. An odor of smoke lingered in his hair, but he wore a long, white shirt with full, blousy sleeves that buttoned down the front. He also had on a pair of loose white drawers and his feet were bare. He didn’t remember putting them on.

 

A brief memory of smoke, flames and blood invaded his consciousness, and he clutched his head, moaning outright. He heard low footsteps rushing outside the door, and it opened without the courtesy of a knock.

 

A woman dressed in a black dress and white cap stared down at him as she let herself in. She was so beautiful she took his breath away, with lustrous red hair tucked up into her cap, making him wonder why she would want to hide it. Green eyes twinkled at him. “Well, hello,” she greeted him. “We’ve much to do for you today, darling. Breakfast and a proper bath are the first orders of the day, now that you’re up and around.”

 

“H-hello,” he attempted. Her eyes lit up.

 

“Oh, my. You spoke. You spoke! Dr. Essex will be delighted!”

 

“E-Essex,” the new being repeated. “Father…?” He stared at her, his eyes demanding an explanation for the connotation that name gave him. Instead, her bright smile gave way to a look of shock.

 

“You’re miles different from the first one,” she mused. “Very different, indeed.” He tugged on the sleeve of his garment, curious about how it seemed to be part of him, yet not. “We put that on you, even though you seemed content to run about in the skin you’re in, lovey.”

 

“First one,” he repeated. Madelyne sighed.

 

“Aye, lad. _That_ one. You met him. About so tall? Not too bright? Blue eyes with a rather vacant look in them?” Before the new being could comment, he heard heavier footsteps approaching, and he jerked the bedclothes up over his lap, even though he had swung his feet down to the floor to get out of bed.

 

“Ah, good morning. I trust you’ve slept well?” Essex entered the suite and let his eyes sweep over his creation, marveling at his handiwork.

 

He was exquisite, his long, cinnamon-colored hair tousled with sleep and skin blooming with healthy color. He toyed with the edge of the blanket and with the strips of bandages. Essex noticed that his nails were badly in need of a manicure, but they could certainly fit that into their day. The sleeve fell back as he raised his hand to rub some sleep out of his eyes, and Essex noticed the ugly purple marks there from where Victor grabbed him.

 

His nightmares had been filled with visions of the foul beast, and his screams and growls still haunted Nathaniel. When he thought about the costly, ill-conceived error he’d nearly made, pushing his creation at that sham of a man, Essex shuddered and kicked himself. He couldn’t take his eyes off of the young man sitting in the bed, fascinated by his surroundings, and likely with himself. He kept tugging at the shirt, managing to wrest one of the buttons from the hole.

 

“You don’t care for it much, do you?” Essex purred. He rubbed his hands together. “That’s fine! You won’t need it for the moment. I need to examine you.” He nodded to the satchel that he’d set on the escritoire as he came inside. “Madelyne, have the girls draw him a nice bath. We’ll be along shortly.”

 

“Erm… that’s fine, Doctor.” Her expression was mulish as she backed out of the room, still giving him a heavy stare as she closed the door. Anticipation and excitement warmed Essex’s gut. He’d been anxious to look him over at his leisure from the moment that he awoke back in his chamber.

 

He could scarcely believe he was even alive, nesting in his slick silk sheets. The scent of lavender tickled his nostrils, something Madelyne made sure was tucked into the linen pantry every time his sheets were washed and pressed. Essex rose and stretched, lingering in his surroundings, drinking in the tranquility before he began his day. He had so much to do, so many mysteries to discover about his creation, and he couldn’t wait to see what made him tick. The question of his powers and how they manifested lay chief among those he wanted to explore.

 

“You can take that off,” Nathaniel told him helpfully. The creature looked relieved and slightly pleased. His long, dexterous fingers worked at the buttons, unfastening them, and he peeled away the bothersome garment, exposing his lean torso to Essex’s hungry gaze. He was perfect, stunning. His muscles were lean, arranged in smooth, rippling harmony. Essex approached the bed and beckoned to him to stand. “Those, too,” he murmured, nodding at the drawers. The creature shrugged, then smiled slightly as he undid the ties at his waist, letting the drawers drop around his ankles. Nathaniel sucked in a breath and felt himself grow instantly hard.

 

He’d done fine work. He was a perfect specimen, a virile, beautiful, perfectly formed man. The slight draft in the room made the pert, beige-pink nipples harden into stiff, inviting little peaks, and the slender, drooping organ dangling between his long, tapered thighs twitched beneath Essex’s gaze, nestled in a tidy nest of dark hair. Essex turned and circled him, turning him this way and that, while those red-on-black eyes regarded him with unrestrained interest and curiosity.

 

He reached out and touched one of those pouting nipples, and his pectoral muscle jumped in response. The new being sucked in a breath of surprise, but he didn’t jump back. Essex traced the tiny nub with his fingertip again, then blew a cool stream of air over it, and the creature groaned in pleasure. “You like that,” he mused.

 

“Yes,” he agreed, swallowing roughly. His responses to verbal and physical stimuli were appropriate, which pleased him. The creature’s movements were fluid and graceful, and his eyes tracked Essex’s motions and gestures. He flattened his palm over the taut young chest, feeling the strength of his heartbeat, noting how it quickened with his touch. He traced the path of muscles, from pectoral to oblique, letting his grip rest lightly on his hard, narrow hipbone.

 

“What’s my name?” Nathaniel asked him softly.

 

“Essex,” he replied.

 

“Nathaniel,” he corrected him, needing to hear him say it with those sculpted, full lips.

 

“Nathaniel,” he said back, without difficulty. Essex was pleased and growing aroused, fascinated by his faculty with speech. He stared into his eyes, watching his pupils dilate, but his vision adjusted itself, seeing his own reflection in the creature’s eyes, noticing his own rapt expression, and that stopped him cold.

 

His control was slipping. It was impossible not to find himself taken by him. Nathaniel shook the fog from his brain and released his pet abruptly, stepping back from him just as the new being lifted his hand to touch his cheek. “I must examine you now. Sit.” The new being watched him in confusion, brows drawn together.

 

“Why?” he asked him.

 

“What?” Essex huffed.

 

“Why did you…?” His young subject gestured at the space between them meaningfully. Essex sighed.

 

“Because I need to complete my examination. It won’t take long. We mustn’t dawdle. Wouldn’t you agree?” The beautiful face still looked confused, but he nodded. Essex opened his satchel and withdrew his instruments. He shined a penlight down into his mouth, peering down at his tonsils, noting their pale, healthy color. He examined his eyes next, once again noting the correct dilation and retraction in his pupils. The strange, hectic energy wasn’t truly gone; when he examined them more closely, he saw the glow swirling and coursing through his irises, completely fascinating him. He poked his tiny scope into his ear canal and peered inside; the new being jerked at the ticklish sensation but submitted to it. Essex gave him a thorough once-over, setting each tool aside when he was done with it, laying them on the bed. The lovely tapered leg jerked when he checked his reflexes with the little latex mallet, and Essex took note of the sheen of fine auburn hair covering its length. “I’m going to take a look at your groin,” Essex informed him bluntly, but his hands shook. “Open your legs for me.”

 

“Yes, Nathaniel.” There it was, his name again, from that mouth, as he spread his thighs obediently and leaned back slightly on the heels of his hands. Essex reached for his slumbering sex and gently lifted his sac, rolling it back and forth, stroking one of the tender globes with his thumb. A shiver worked its way down through the new being’s abdomen and he exhaled a choked breath.

 

“No lumps. No sores,” he assured him. “Typical response…”

 

“Yes,” he replied, and he chanced a look at the throbbing subject of conversation. His shaft jerked awake and twitched with every gentle probe of Essex’s fingers. A rush of heat enveloped Essex as he lifted the sac a bit higher and ran his finger over his smooth taint. The new being jerked and shivered, and he became fully erect, shocked at the reaction it had on his flesh.

 

“Would you care to touch it? It’s part of you,” Essex purred assuringly. He teased the tumescent dome with his fingertip, and the plump head sought more of his touch, deepening in color to a rich rose. The young man gasped, then moaned in pleasure, and all attempts at a clinical examination were lost. Essex circled his shaft with his finger and thumb and smoothly jerked it from base to tip, exploring the bulging vein that ran underneath. “Or I can touch it for you.”

 

“Nathaniel,” he breathed. He made no further attempt to speak, only pushed himself into his ministrations, hips jerking him further into Essex’s hungry grip.

 

The brief knock at the door startled them both, breaking the spell the new being had over him. Essex released him just as abruptly this time, and he watched in dismay as the creature scrambled back toward the headboard of the bed. Madelyne stepped inside again, this time bearing a fresh change of clothing and some folded towels.

 “Goodness,” she exclaimed under her breath, “sweet Mary and Joseph, Doctor, he’s naked again!”

 “An oversight you can see about with your usual haste and decorum,” Essex told her decisively. He rose and hurried to pack up his instruments into his satchel. “Bath. Breakfast. Then return him to his suite. I have some business to attend this afternoon.”

 “Business,” Madelyne muttered. “Certainly, Doctor.” She laid the clothes down on the vanity and hastened to find her charge a robe. “Doctor?”

 “Yes, woman, what else?” he grumbled impatiently as he turned to leave.

 “Have you decided on a name for him? We could always call him Shy Violet,” she suggested wickedly.

 “Oh.” It had slipped his name. Essex peered at his finest creation, who was still fascinated by his manhood, gingerly poking it to make it jump, until Madelyne hissed at him to stop, that it wasn’t gentlemanly. “Do you have a name?” he asked him.

“My… name?” he replied, shrugging.

“Yes. A name that you would like.” The new being looked troubled and put aside his exploration of his nethers, rubbing his nape thoughtfully as he pondered it. His eyes scanned the room, then landed on something he liked.

“Remy,” he pronounced. He gave Madelyne a hesitant but disarming smile. “I am… Remy.

“It’s lovely, pet. Suits you down to the ground.”


	5. Fertile Ground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I have no blinkin’ clue how to summarize this. I’m frickin’ nuts. And lost. Did I mention I’m lost????
> 
> Author’s Note: Yes, Remy is Remy. But now, I won’t leave you hanging as to how he picked his name for the sake of this story.

Madelyne hummed a lilting tune in her rich voice, knowing her employer wouldn’t approve of the bawdy lyrics while she was caring for her new charge. Remy sat idly in the tub, contemplating the various toiletry items surrounding him. His long, narrow foot, gleaming and slick where it protruded from the bubbly froth, kept seeking out the dripping spout. He stuck his big toe into the cool metal fixture, watching as it cut off the slow, broken rhythm of droplets that gradually dissipated the layer of suds. He watched it like a six-year-old child, completely rapt as she scrubbed his hair.

“Tip your head back, love,” she advised. Madelyn poured a pitcher of steaming water over his hair, rinsing away the jasmine-scented foam. The bath was a sensory overload for him, but it wasn’t an unpleasant experience. He’d initially startled at the sound of rushing water as it crashed into the porcelain tub, and he’d been reluctant to climb into it; it was reminiscent of the womb, and he’d fought her as she strong-armed him out of the silk robe. He huddled in the corner of the enormous bathroom, until she flicked him with a few drops of the warm water. 

“See? It’s nice, darling. Get in, it’s toasty warm. You really do need a nice bath.” The scent of smoke still lingered in his hair, and the bottoms of his feet were filthy. She flicked him again, grinning at him, and he cocked his head in confusion. “I wouldn’t lie to you. It won’t hurt you, Remy.” He straightened slightly from his hunched crouch, but he still clung to the wall he’d back himself against. “No need to be shy with me now, surely. Get in the nice tub. Come along.” He drew near, and she gently took his wrist, guiding him to touch the rising suds as the tub filled. He drew his hand back quickly, but curiosity brought him back, and he marveled at the fizzy pop of the tiny bubbles as they dissolved over his skin a bit at a time.

From that moment, it was easy. Madelyne watched him patiently as he toyed with the bath salts, tiny bottles of oils, a large sea sponge, the bars of fine French soap and the sprigs of lavender that she set nearby to relax him. She almost wished she had a little toy boat for him to float on the surface, but again, Dr. Essex would find such a concept entirely inappropriate. Still…

“Would you like Maddie to bring you a sail boat next time?”

“Yes,” Remy murmured as she continued to rinse his hair. Madelyn chuckled. His eyes drifted open, and he stared at her nebulously. “What’s a sail boat?”

“You’ll find out soon enough,” she promised. “Give me your hands.” She inspected his nails and tsked. “That won’t do at all.” She took out her emery board and began working on the jagged, uneven lengths, gently paring away the grime and dirt rimming the cuticles. 

“Maddie,” she said, testing her name.

“Short for Madelyne,” she reminded him.

“Mother?” he inquired. She paused in her labors and sighed.

“No, dear. That’s not who I am to you.”

“Who?” She winced. Madelyne stroked his hand thoughtfully and met his eyes, looking wistful.

“I really don’t know, Remy. I wish I could tell you.” How to explain to him that he had several, too many to quantify? He was conceived on an operating table from parts pilfered from desecrated graves, where he gestated in a laboratory… Madelyne shivered. She shrank beneath his gaze, swamped with guilt, but some firm resolve made her straighten up. She sensed the turmoil in his thoughts, without digging too deeply.

It would break him if he knew. Remy needed to be protected from the truth. Some things were too horrible to share with his innocent, unstained mind. All those who dwelled and worked within the Essex estate were a bit twisted, both from necessity and by their master’s design, much in the fashion that fresh, pink rosebuds inevitably grew vicious thorns.

“You… can’t be?” he asked, looking slightly hurt.

“Don’t be a silly goose,” she chided him. “I’m here to help you, certainly, dearie, and to take care of you, definitely. I don’t have to be the one who bore you to do that. Just ask Dr. Essex; I take care of him, too.” She resumed her work on his manicure. “You will have a groom,” she mentioned casually. “Someone to dress you and keep you looking smart and sharp.”

“Why?”

“Because fine gentleman have them.” She could tell by the way his auburn brows drew together that he still didn’t see the benefit of having a groom. She was impressed by his language faculty, something that Victor had struggled with so much. She blamed some of it with his master’s lack of patience and vague expectations of how he would adjust. Then again, she considered, a father always rushed his firstborn and often hoped to see himself reflected there, the man that he would become, rather than the child that he was.

The bath was leisurely, and despite her determination to detach herself from him, Madelyne pampered and spoiled Remy thoroughly, teasing him and telling him stories. She was almost disappointed when she finally rolled up her sleeve, reached into the tub and pulled the stopper. She guided him out before he could panic at the rush of draining water, their suds completely exhausted.

Back in his suite, she bundled him into a thick terry robe instead of the silk one; he seemed taken with the nubby texture. She towel-dried his hair, impressed by the slick, tangled mass of dark chestnut sheaves. She sat him down by the fireplace to help it dry more quickly as she began to work a wide-toothed, silver comb through it.

“Maddie?” he asked. “I had… bad dreams.”

“Goodness,” she pouted. “Were they that dreadful?”

“Yes.” He closed his eyes and leaned back, swallowing roughly. “They… scared me.”

“What did you dream of? Can you tell me?”

“Screams,” he told her. “So many… screams. Hot. Dark.” Her mind gently touched his, and she skimmed the surface of his thoughts, like skipping a pebble across a lake. He barely felt the invasion, but his fingers tightened around the arms of the fine chair as she continued to comb his hair. She carefully probed deeper, feeling herself slipping into the corridor of his psyche.

She walked slowly, following the myriad voices and feeling their resonance. She saw various images swirling about in a dark mist, and she realized that they were fragments, gleaned from the brain – or brains – of the previous owner(s). She saw the scenes flash and flicker, an eerie collage of past lives. The emotions were varied and rich, and she breathed them in, craving more. Madelyne felt curiosity, passion, and a craving for knowledge, paralleled only by the likes or Plato or Socrates. She sensed mischief, and that pleased her, yet she also found a dark, juicy nexus of pain. Strife. Abandonment. Loss. 

Fear.

It sprouted up from the ground of his mind’s landscape in tiny, prickly seedlings, wrapping round her shoes and ankles and winding themselves tight. Madelyne tried not to cry out, struggling within the coiling trap, but she was distracted by each image of the men who gave their lives – inadvertently – for Remy to gain his. Games of stickball on hot, sticky afternoons. Hunting for toads in swampy marshes, poking them with long, jagged sticks. Courtships of blushing young girls in the streets, or stolen kisses on balconies under a full moon. Foaming mugs of dark, pungent ale over rousing games of cards. Mourning wives on deathbeds. Holding a tender newborn, fresh from its mother’s belly, snuffling and fidgeting, suckling on its tiny fingers. Nursing the ache from a blow, flying headlong into fisticuffs, rubbing the sweet smart of bruised flesh. Madelyne experienced it unfiltered, swept up in its tide.

“Maddie?”

Remy’s plea broke their connection. “Yes, dearie?”

“Do you like me?”

“Yes.” There was no hesitation, and she felt his reassurance and comfort, felt the hint of tension in his shoulders leave him. “I certainly do.”

“Does… does Nathaniel like me?”

“Oh, yes. Yes, he does.” The misnomer… unnerved her, but she let it go. Essex despised familiarity from anyone he deemed beneath him, and Remy was a possession, far more than he could be considered a person.

She learned not to question Dr. Nathaniel Essex in motive or plan. She was rewarded for her discretion every time she drew breath.

*

He didn’t know how long he’d walked. He ignored the harsh intrusion of pebbles and brittle leaves beneath his abused feet; he was grateful that the skin had grown back, covered in its characteristic, fine layer of blond hair. Victor savored the cool, misty air of the moors surrounding the village as he headed east, toward the bills. His stomach growled, empty for far too long. He craved both meal and bed, neither of which were to be had so far from the estate.

Hatred and rage kept him warm, despite his tattered clothing, most of which he’d shed as he walked. He wrapped his torn shirt around his head, like a makeshift hood as he waited for the blisters and welts on his scalp, face and neck to heal. As the fresh hair grew back, it itched; his jagged talons scrabbled over his wounds, anxious for relief. The memory of his creator disowning him with no more regard than he would show a crushed snail stewed within his shattered mind. The image of the beautiful new being haunted him, but he wanted to roar at the memory of his fear and revulsion toward him, of the injuries he’d caused him.

Victor longed to possess him, then tear him apart.

The cool air soothed his wounds, and the solitude forced him to confront the memories and to relive his ordeal by fire. The reality of his master… no, his creator’s disdain of him brought him to a new concept of selfhood. He’d lived in darkness, eating, sleeping, cowering, and pleading. Victor merely dwelled in the great mansion, having little to nothing to do with its day-to-day function. He had no job, nor anything resembling a purpose. Essex kept him chained up or locked away, occasionally experimenting on him, part and parcel of the shelter the kind doctor provided to him. His interactions with the staff were sparse. His appearance frightened the kitchen’s scullery staff; even the livestock were leery of him on the single afternoon where he’d wandered outside toward the barn on Essex’s estate. The fine black and roan horses caught his scent before any sight of the lumbering, feral-looking giant, and their neighs sounded like banshee shrieks, so blood-chilling that the grooms in the stable chases Victor out with pitchforks, back toward the house, where Essex soundly yanked him away and thrashed him with a whip. Essex’s eyes were soulless and hard, and Victor heard his low grunts with each swing of the leather coil, below the din of his own miserable sobs and shouts. He curled up that night in his Spartan cell, nursing his weals and huddling against the cold stone, attempting to cool the sores.

“Foolish baggage,” Essex muttered as he exited the cell. “You’ll ruin us all, running about in the open. Know your place!” That was the first, then last time he’d ever walked in the sunlight. But he didn’t regret it, this feast for his senses, drawing in the first taste of freedom. The breeze had ruffled his scraggly hair and caressed his skin, fluttering his shabby clothing. The rich scent of grass and wildflowers reached him, and he breathed it deep, despite the underlying odors from the horses’ stalls, but the organic, pungent stench didn’t bother him. The late afternoon sunlight bathed him, warming his flesh, and he reached out to grasp it, flexing his fingers within its glow. His pitiful cries did not sway their resolve when the stable hands grappled with him and inevitably dragged him back in through the back gate of the house. Essex left behind a tiny lantern as a kindness, but Victor was tortured by the minute, flickering shadows along the wall, picking out the scrabbling ants and spiders that spun their sinister, lacy gray webs in the dank corners of his private hell.

This was freedom, being out in the open, regardless of the method that brought him there. His senses were heightened and sharp. His ears picked up the scrabble of voles and mice, various families of wrens and finches in the trees, even the drip of sap from the fragrant pines. He wiled away an hour searching for edible roots, and he eventually found a patch of mushrooms, smooth and succulent. He sat and munched on them, and his flesh chafed at the itchy poke of the grass and dead leaves, but he was grateful to rest and partake of his meager supper…

…until he heard low, distinctive grunting and snuffling from less than a meter away. Victor paused and slowly backed into the clutch of shrubs and briars, ignoring their sharp stickers. As he retreated, two fine, gray wild boars waddled out of the brush, drawn by the roots and truffles as Victor had been. Victor’s mouth watered at the mere thought of roast pork, a rare treat even in Essex’s house, having only been offered scraps when Madelyne thought to sneak him any after the lavish dinners they’d held. He contemplated the beasts, admiring their bristly hairs that sprouted randomly along their thick hides, dangerous looking tusks gleaming in the twilight. He backed himself further into the brush and listened to them root and hunt, munching on the earthy treats.

Victor’s eyes dilated, then retracted, and amber replaced blue in his irises as the predator inside him rose up, dominating the man, relegating him to the beast. His canines elongated, and his tongue darted out to trace their points, anticipating rich, warm meat, riddled with gleaming fat and soaked with the coppery tang of blood… the scent of the boars intoxicated him, and anything resembling reason left him. It was time to hunt. It was time to feast.

“Mine,” he growled under his breath. The larger of the two pigs waddled ever closer, snorting and grunting in satisfaction as it found crude, shriveled berries to round out its supper. But the second animal drew pause, sniffing the air. He squealed indignantly at the presence of another predator, and its stance grew stiff, its back arched in warning.

The amber-eyed, growling creature, leaping with talons spread, was the last thing it saw before it was torn to pieces.

 

Victor rested against a large oak, two decimated, wretched carcasses laying stretched out beside him, completely sated. He continued to lick his hands clean, or some semblance of it, as he watched the stars work their way out of the inky blackness. The night air felt cool and luscious, and he was nearly content to curl up and slumber, despite his lack of shelter.

He’d watched Madelyne and the other scullery staff build a fire often enough to manage one himself, gathering up fallen branches and smaller tinder and striking a hunk of flint against the stone. He hissed at the faint spark that bit his flesh before it lit the twigs, but soon he rested beside a modest blaze. Victor listened to the night sounds and studied his hands and limbs in the firelight. His wounds were nearly healed, faster than the ones Essex inflicted upon him had before, but what struck him was his flesh, as a whole, making him stare at it in wonder.

His scars were gone. All of them. The flames sheared them away, and his accelerated healing factor, something that Essex had toyed with, compensated him with undamaged, pristine flesh, the delicious pink of a newborn babe. He extended and turned his outstretched hand, running a curious fingertip down the length of a long, blue vein. Every suture scar, every puncture wound, even the most minute fissures from the constant scrapes and nicks that were a by-product of his clumsiness, was gone as though it had never been. He examined his chest and belly, and the long, grisly suture tracks were absent, where his body was once riddled with them. He reached up over his shoulder and felt around for the whip scars, but those, too, had vanished. .

Victor rose and stretched, deciding to settle his dinner with a stroll in the thicket. Thirst nagged him, and he let his feet and senses guide him toward moisture, even though the woods were wholly unfamiliar to him. He left the firelight further and further behind him, until his eyes had to compensate for the utter darkness, picking out the silhouettes of the trees. He relished his freedom and the lack of stone walls and steel that held him bound and helpless for so long. He slapped idly at the mosquitos that were drawn to his blood and that of the boars that still stained his skin, and somehow he knew that their presence indicated nearby water. He tripped over a hard tree root, then righted himself, picking his way over rocky soil. He’d solved the problem of an empty belly; next on the list was a pair of shoes.

Victor smelled water. He practically crawled through the bushes and climbed over several large rocks until he caught his first sight of a shallow creek. He was greeted by its low trickles and the chirps of toads and crickets, and he grinned at his victory and the promise of a cool, fresh drink. He approached the current, feeling the wavelets lapping at his ankles, and he bent down and cupped his hands, drinking greedily of the sweet water. Victor splashed some over his hands and arms, attempting to clean himself off, and he removed his soiled, tattered shirt, freeing his hair. Victor tossed the rag aside and splashed his face and chest, swiping at his skin with his palms. The darkened, drying blood ran pinkly down his belly as he rinsed it away, emphasizing the unbroken, pale skin. The moonlight turned the water silver, and Victor waded in more deeply for a proper bath, now accustomed to its chill. He made brief work of his tangled hair, which had slowly begun to grow back, and his fingers combed through its thickness, coarser and denser than before.

He followed the path of the creek to a shallow pool where it emptied, and Victor climbed out, spent. He rested on a large rock and rang out his dripping hair, no longer sticky with blood and grime. He caught his reflection in the smooth surface and drew himself up short.

The hideous scars had healed, burned away entirely by the fire, and the long, rangy face was framed by sandy, damp sheaves of hair, no longer spotty tufts interrupted by scar tissue or deformities. Victor touch his cheek, stroking the high, sharp plane, and he traced the shaggy arch of his brow. Surely, that wasn’t the face that Essex and his staff had found so hideous? He touched his own reflection, then startled at the ripples that made his image dissipate. Various emotions assaulted him, struggling for dominance in his mind, and he hugged himself, rocking and shivering, until the rage overtook him again.

Victor scrambled to his feet and howled, accusing the world that wronged him.

*

Essex pondered his manicured thumbnail during the smooth ride to his colleague’s home, nearly lulled to sleep by the gentle rocking of the carriage. Essex let several months elapse since they’d parted company, unsure of how to pick up where they left off. Somehow, he knew resuming his friendship with En-Sabah Nur wasn’t something to be undertaken lightly.

As he neared the sprawling estate, Essex peered inside the large velvet pouch that held his gift, a bottle of fine Remy Martin cognac. He chuckled to himself, remembering that he’d left an empty cognac bottle in the new being’s suite. Those childlike red-on-black eyes drifted around the room, searching, searching… then lit up when they found their inspiration.

“Remy. My name is… Remy.” His voice was uncertain, but his expression was pleased and proud as he announced this, and Essex wanted to cheer. Remy had surpassed all of his expectations so far, exceeding his work with Victor, rendering the foul creature obsolete and a disgrace. Essex had fingered the Remy Martin label, embarrassed that he’d left the bottle there during one of his sojourns through his cavernous house. His wife’s spirit still whispered to him at night, and the alcohol did little to hush her taunts. The amber swirl of liquid in the fine crystal tumbler reminded him of his creature’s gleaming sheaves of hair.

He scrubbed his face briefly, clearing away that impression like an errant cobweb. There was no time to be fanciful.

The winding road gave way to a black iron gate recessed among the trees. Essex’s coachman nodded up at a small black crow that cawed raucously, flapping its wings from a tall pine. Its beady black eye glowed, illuminated by a small white pinprick of light, just before an electronic lens protruded from it and captured the prospective visitors to the estate. Like magic, the gate groaned as it slid open to admit them. Essex smiled, nodding up from the coach'’ window toward the bird, who cocked its slick feathered head and cawed once more. Unlike Essex’s home, which bore the trappings of those surrounding it, lit by lanterns from the outside, Eh Sabah-Nur made use of the technology at his disposal, being as secluded as he was by choice, and necessity. His mansion was vast and as fortified as a military stronghold, gated and buttressed with adjoining towers and protected by myriad cameras. The surrounding villagers weren’t aware of their remarkable denizen or the marvels he held at his disposal, but they would have decried it as witchcraft, and the master of the house as Old Scratch himself.

Essex dressed in his finest clothes and took the time to let Madelyne shave him properly and trim his shaggy hair, clubbing it back neatly into a ponytail and tying it off with a black satin ribbon. He wore a pair of dark spectacles with wire rims, as the sight of his eyes often unnerved his colleague’s staff. The coach wound its way around the circular driveway of the home, and his driver hopped down to swing the handle of the elaborate door knocker, shaped like the head of a growling wolf. The metallic sounding knocks brought the measured steps of someone obviously expecting them, fine, hard shoe soles clacking against polished marble floors. Essex’s coachman, Kristopher, lumbered down from his seat and jerked open the coach door with a flourish. Essex’s stride was smooth as he climbed the short steps to the front door, nodding to the servant dressed in starched livery.

“Good evening, Moses.”

“Welcome, Dr. Essex. He’s waiting for you in the study.” The dark-skinned butler took his coat and hung it up. Essex waited for him to hang it on the hook before following him down the long corridor, through the formal sitting room on their way to the study. Various hunting trophies and taxidermied animals occupied the space on contrast to the opulent furniture and fine sculptures. Essex chuckled at his friend’s need to flaunt his conquests and superiority.

Nur’s back was to him as he entered the modest library, pouring himself a cocktail. He wore a simple black suit with an impeccably knotted blue cravat, and he turned at the sound of Essex’s footsteps. “Dr. Essex, milord,” Moses announced.

“Would you care for a drink?” Essex nodded briefly. “Fetch another goblet, Moses. The Baccarat.”

“Gladly, milord.”

“You look well,” Nur mentioned casually, raising his glass to him and beckoning to him to sit down. Essex perched himself on the edge of a velvet ottoman and laid his cane against the edge of a chaise.

“Hardly.”

“Been burning the midnight oil?” Essex’s eyes track the movement of Nur’s deformed, wide lips with their characteristic, bluish-gray tinge as they purse themselves over the rim of the fine crystal. He sipped the brandy, sighing over its burn. “You can imagine my relief to find you here, old friend. I’d heard the locals gabbing on about a fire?”

“My laboratory. It was destroyed in the blaze.” Nur set down his glass and approached him, face wreathed in sympathy.

“Dolt. I should have heard this news from your lips sooner. You should have contacted me.”

“I had more pressing concerns to attend to, my friend.” He accepted his friend’s back-clapping embrace, finding himself enveloped against his solid, vast bulk. En Sabah Nur was a behemoth of a man, easily standing around seven feet tall. His skin was an earthly white pallor with a gray cast. En Sabah Nur seldom made public engagements, but he was one of the town’s most generous benefactors, feeding its livelihood from his own coffers. “I had to protect my latest… accomplishment.” Nur huffed a laugh, making the gill-like striations that slashed across his cheeks flex open briefly. Essex winced; he was nearly as hideous as Victor, but who was he to judge the man who’d given him everything, even if it was at the dearest price imaginable?

“You’re still dabbling, then? You didn’t learn from your last project?”

“I learned what I needed to know, and it shows in Remy. He’s surpassed my expectations.”

“Remy. Interesting choice of name.”

“He picked it himself.” That made Nur’s hand pause, bottle hovering over the rim of the glass.

“Go on.”

“He’s verbal, even fluent. I’d even call him articulate. He’s anatomically superior to my previous works.”

“More man than beast, I trust?” Nur smirked, then waved his hand dismissively. “Is he a gentle giant?”

“He’s perfect,” Essex pronounced, taking the goblet from Nur’s beefy hand. “He’s nothing like that… that waste of flesh.”

“What do you plan to do with your pet Victor?”

“He’s already been disposed of,” Essex told him, and Nur narrowed his eyes. “Victor wasn’t fortunate enough to escape the blaze.”

“Did you recover his body? You could always-“

“No.” Essex sniffed the brandy and held it up to the light, swirling it slightly to let it breathe. “I’ve no plans to revisit my past failures with that wretch.”

“He had his sterling qualities,” Nur argued. Essex didn’t like the smug gleam in his eye. “He was made from good, strong stock. You never explored his strengths enough. Had you not been so hasty in his creation and had taken the time to refine him, Nathaniel… think of the possibilities.”

“Hasty? Surely you jest, man! I scoured the institutes to track down the most brilliant deceased scholars to find the most suitable brain, but something went wrong when Modok and I reanimated him. His neural matrix must have destabilized.”

“Where nature fails, Nathaniel, nurture must assume control. You hardly exhausted any of your resources or time in trying to cultivate him into something more… purposeful.” Nur sighed and shook his head. “When haven’t I told you that it’s best to work with what you have? Haste makes waste.” Essex rolled his eyes and threw up his hand.

“Spare me your platitudes. You sound like my granny aunt.”

“Look at Moses. He’s an example of what can be done with fine stock, if you spend the time working on it.” He nodded out the window, pulling back the curtains. “I asked him to bring in some more firewood.”

“You have a woodsman,” Essex scoffed.

“Just watch him,” he told him again, sighing and beckoning him over. Essex joined him where he drew back the curtains.

Moses’s posture and gait were stately and controlled as he reached the edge of the surrounding woods and approached an enormous maple tree. He wasn’t carrying an ax. Essex frowned. Moses rubbed his hands together and gestured, closing his eyes. Before Essex could comment on it, he felt the floor rumble beneath their feet, throwing him off balance. Nur chuckled, then emitted crack of laughter that chilled Essex to the core. He watched disbelieving as the roots of the tree unraveled and unplanted themselves from the soil. The surrounding trees shook and tossed, and Essex saw the ground split open in ragged tears and fissures, ruining Nur’s front lawn. Moses reached down and grasped the root of the proud maple and gave it a swift jerk. Essex swore he could almost hear the tree scream as it was violently torn from its sheltering soil and toppled mercilessly.

“Maple burns so nicely on a chilly night like tonight,” Nur mused. “More brandy?” Essex swallowed roughly. The ground continued to shake slightly with Moses’ booming footsteps as he dragged the tree around back.

“Perhaps… have Moses bring another bottle.”

“Make yourself comfortable!” Nur boomed happily. “Tell me more about this Remy of yours.”

*

Logan woke mercifully from the nightmares, hearing the screams in his mind fade as his eyes slowly gained focus in the dark. He wasn’t sure what noise roused him from sleep as he scanned his shabby bedroom. Buck slumbered on his threadbare rug by the dwindling fire, worrying his ear with his paw in his sleep and letting out a soft whine. Logan leaned up from his pillows, spilling the book that was splayed open over his chest to the floor. “Shit…” His mouth tasted dry and he untangled himself from his bedclothes, which had grown wrapped around his legs in the scuffle.

He listened quietly, cataloguing the night sounds in and around his house. He heard his water pump dripping and the loose shutter that he’d promised himself he would fix banging in the harsh draft. Throaty frogs and crickets sang in a nocturnal dual of chirps and croaks outside his window. He growled to himself and scrubbed his face with his palm, raking his fingers through his tangles of coarse hair. His lantern was still lit on the bedside table, and he was about to extinguish it when the noise that had woke him began again.

Footsteps were scuffling around in the brush surrounding his property. Logan took the lantern and rose from bed, shoving his feet into his worn old pair of slippers. Slowly he crept from the room, content to remain in the shadows for the moment. The footfalls were heavy, like those of a grown man. In the dark, Logan’s other senses sharpened to compensate, and he caught his scent on the breeze. Every alarm in his head went off in response to the musky tang, naming his visitor a predator.

Just like him. Logan bit back a snarl.

He hissed in annoyance as Buck padded over to him, wagging his tail. The mutt’s hackles rose just as sharply as his own, and he growled low in his throat, muzzle drawing back to bark, but Logan hushed him. “No, boy,” he told him. “You stay. Whatever’s out there is bigger and meaner than you.” The dog whined in protest and hung his head. “Stay,” Logan insisted again, asserting himself as the alpha of the house. Buck whined again and scooched down, laying his head on his paws. He watched with soulful eyes as his master went out through the back door, padding out with almost deadly stealth.

Victor paused where he crouched in the brush, sniffing the air when he heard the faint squeal of a hinge. The breeze ruffled his blond locks and brought the scent of the shack’s owner to him. Male. Older. Able-bodied and awake. Victor breathed deeply, drinking him as he contemplated his options. He sucked his teeth in anticipation, flicking his tongue over his fangs.

Logan watched the interloper in the shadows from the crack between his curtain’s edge and the window frame. He saw his eyes, glowing amber in the dark, searching, waiting for him. Logan almost wanted to laugh; he had nothing worth stealing except for a few coins in his pockets, his mangy mutt and a picture of Rose that had miraculously survived the fire. His heart rate sped up and he remained silent, the only sound in the corridor his own shallow breathing.

The sound of a squirrel skittering out into the open from the shrubs jolted him from his concentration on those eyes, and he could tell his visitor shifted his focus, too, on the tiny creature.

Supper.

The stranger pounced after it with lightning speed, growling and hissing as it captured the wide-eyed, gray beastie by its plush tail. Logan looked on, horrified, as it clutched it to its maw and sank its teeth into its throat. Logan recoiled at the sound of its lusty grunts of satisfaction as it dug into the twitching, warm meat, and within seconds the high-pitched chittering stopped. Logan drew back from the window in revulsion, wanting to retch over the tearing, spurting sounds and the stench of blood.

Victor licked his claws and fingers, tossing the remains of the carcass aside. He regarded the house with interest. It was worn and in ill repair, but it might provide him with decent shelter for the night. He sniffed the air and once again found its occupant, no doubt pacing inside. Victor growled, baring his teeth. Logan’s lips drew back from his teeth, as well, responding to his senses’ message that this stranger was a threat.

Logan retreated from the curtain, mere inches as he watched the man, impossibly tall and rangy, creep toward his home with surprising grace. He climbed the rickety wooden stairs, and they creaked under his weight. Logan abandoned his efforts at getting a good look at the man, knowing it was better to remain out of sight. Slowly and painfully, he extended his claws, bracing his fist against his chest. 

Victor stalked the porch, running his hand over the rough boards of the wall, testing the shutters. He attempted to stare in through the window, but the curtains were drawn. He leaned his face against the glass, peering in through the crack, but he couldn’t get a satisfactory look into the corridor. His amber eye tracked a flicker of movement, and he heard a low, canine growl. Victor huffed, then backed away.

There was no sense in breaking in. While Victor had little qualm in ousting the master of the house – he doubted he would willingly offer him shelter, remembering how repulsed Essex’s household staff were over his appearance – he decided to leave the mongrel alone. It was his territory, after all, and Victor would respect it.

Logan listened to him retreat back into the brush, but his heart was still pounding. His fingers trembled as he pulled back the curtain, seeing the long line of his back disappearing into the trees. From what he could tell, his hair was pale in color, long and shaggy, and he appeared to be nude.

“Miserable bastard,” Logan mused. “Back to bed, Buck. C’mon, boy.” Logan retreated to his room and extinguished the lantern, but not before he removed his rifle from the closet and propped it against the night stand.


	6. Under the Big Top

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Victor falls in with those who share his lot in life. Not an animal, but still a freak.
> 
> Author’s Note: This is a lot of what I pictured when I started writing this. This might be a Victor vehicle for a while. I picture Kiefer Sutherland in Lost Boys whenever I think of Sabertooth. Scruffy, but hot.

The various, mouthwatering smells of supper brought him to the edge of the brush, lurking and spying on the rickety little cottage. Victor salivated, parting the branches with his taloned fingers as he peered at the house. He heard the muffled shrieks of children inside, wincing at their shrill tones. Their mother’s irritated rail cut over the din, and Victor ducked more deeply into his hiding place as the door slammed open against the wall, followed by a thudding of feet down the two short steps.

Victor never had any direct contact with children before, only having seen them from the windows of the great estate, for the most part. On one rare visit, Essex entertained a local solicitor, Scott Summers, and his striking wife, Jean. Victor had watched from the shadows, quelled in his efforts to come closer by Madelyne, her psychic injunctions telling him firmly to stay put. From his perch behind the railing, just below the eave of the vaulted ceiling, Victor saw two dainty feet swim into his view, shod in soft leather slippers. Essex’s smooth, liquid voice welcomed them inside, and as she carried herself more deeply into the great hall, Victor drank in his first look at Mrs. Summers, feeling his breath catch. She was stunning, with fiery red hair and eyes like the finest emeralds, rivaling Madelyne’s. She glanced up toward the railing, and Victor shrank back in a panic, but she did not see him, as she was conveniently distracted by the patter of tiny feet. Scott and Jean’s son, Christopher, darted several yards ahead of his nanny, tempted by all of the fine sculptures and pottery, and Victor was taken by how fragile and impish he looked, eyes full of wonder that he could never remember feeling. He was dressed in clothing as expensive as his parents’, buttoned up in a heavy, navy coat that brought out the blue of his eyes, and his demeanor was full of mischief. Victor found himself unable to take his eyes from him, realized his giggles were thoroughly distracting. His father finally reigned him in before he could get his hands on a crystal figurine resting on a marble side table. Scott smiled benignly; Victor could not see his eyes behind the strange, wire-rimmed reading spectacles he wore with ruby red lenses.

Like his mother had done, Christopher ran back into the corridor and stared up at the railing, and Victor retreated to the shadows, alarmed when he pointed a finger in his direction.

“He’s sad, Papa,” the child pronounced in definitive tones.

“Who, child?”

“He is,” he insisted simply, but Essex shook his head, ruffling his hair.

“The brilliant imaginations of children,” he chuckled. “You have your hands full with this scamp.” Victor shivered, unsure of why. He felt Essex’s satisfaction with the child, feeling how fascinated he was with him, yet it felt… wrong.

“We do, indeed. He’s led Nanny quite the chase since he woke up this morning,” Jean told him, clutching her son’s plump hand. They retired to the garden, and Victor regretted it when they took the child away. His aura was pure, a refreshing change from the staff or anyone else who crossed the threshold.

He sensed that same wholesome, unspoiled quality in the two young ones that were tearing through the yard, ransacking their mother’s clothesline for sheets, which immediately became makeshift capes. They snapped off long branches from the slender crepe myrtle tree, callously stripping them of their delicate fuchsia petals as they launched into a swordfight. A hint of a smile quirked at Victor’s lips.

He decided to bide his time, even though his belly was growing more insistent that he feed it. An errant breeze blew through the trees, making the branches overhead sway and dance, shifting the sunlight so it dappled his bare skin. His trousers were a lost cause, more tattered than practical, but he would take any barrier between himself and the various stickers, scratchy twigs, thorns and chiggers that plagued him throughout his trek. The breeze carried his scent to the children’s canine, a scraggly looking beagle. The dog stirred itself from the fragment of bone it was gnawing, snuffling and emitting a low growl of warning. The boys paused in their duel, letting their branches hang slack from their hands.

“What’s eating you, boy?” the taller one demanded. Victor bristled and began to retreat, but he heard the dog growl again, hackles raising and rearing back on its haunches. Its tail thumped the ground several times as it contemplated the presence nearby, clearly a predator.

“Mama, Petey’s after something!” his brother called, which set the dog off and running. “Wait, Petey, wait!” Victor growled in frustration; his hiding place was threatened, and any chance of scavenging among the refuse or discarded remains of the family’s meal evaporated. The dog blazed the trail of his scent, musky and pungent, a human tang muddled with something feral. Petey’s muzzle scrunched back, revealing his sharp teeth, and he barked angrily, informing Victor that his tiny charges were his to protect. Victor, nonplussed, decided he wouldn’t be cowed . He slunk out onto the path and sized up the canine. The children wisely hung back, watching their pet disappear into the trees.

“PETEY!” The younger child’s voice sounded panicked and slightly mournful. It wasn’t unusual for the villagers that lived just outside the town’s limits to lose pets to the wildlife that shared their territory. His face screwed itself up into the telltale pucker that his brother recognized all too well.

“He’ll come back, Tuck. MAMA!” he cried, as if he needed her there to support his claim. He felt true dread creeping over him at the possibility that their beloved dog might not return.

The beagle’s dark eyes bore into Victor’s, and his growl was a constant, ululating treble, suddenly broken by several staccato barks. Victor bared his teeth and rose to his full height, husking deep, guttural growls from his chest. The dog yapped, skittering back a few steps, but hurried at him again, stopping just inches shy of the giant before him and snapping at his feet. With a might swat, Victor sent the cur flying back, teeth clicking together where he landed on his back. He rolled over, stunned, and kept barking with clear message that Victor wasn’t welcome. The dog rushed at him again, and Victor roared this time, tired of its antics, but at he raised his hand again, talons extended and poised to slice the creature’s throat, he heard the children’s hurried steps and their mother’s heavier footfalls and gasping breath. She brandished a long pitchfork, eyes blazing, and she shrieked at the sight of the daunting, ragged giant, nearly nude and threatening their watchdog.

“You WRETCH! Don’t you dare! Petey, get back now, boy!” She rushed at Victor with the pitchfork, and he smelled her fear, as well as the children’s, and it brought him up short.

“No…no, no harm,” Victor insisted roughly, but the dog’s infernal barking hadn’t ceased. 

“You’ve got that right, mister,” she told him sharply, thrusting the fork at him again. “Get the hell away from my house and my boys. Stragglers aren’t welcome here.”

“I…go,” he told her, fighting disappointment. Her eyes flitted over him, taking in his filthy, bare feet and charred clothing.

“You look like… bedlam,” she told him. “Like someone dragged you through a thorn patch backwards.” She wrinkled her nose at the smell of him, waving her hand in front of her face. “Ugh… and you’re absolutely ripe.”

“Go,” he replied, backing away from her.

“What was your business here, baggage?” she demanded suddenly. “Another one looking to get on with the circus now that it’s come ‘round again?”

“Circus.” Victor tested the strange word but could find no image in his mind to associate with it. He shook his head and shrugged.

“That outfit brings all types, particularly the likes of you,” she spat, shaking her head. She propped herself up against her pitchfork and wiped her brow, then planted her hand on her hip. “I can’t have you stalking around my property. Don’t make me call the constable.”

“Mama, he has no shoes,” her youngest insisted. “Give him some of Papa’s.”

“I’m not giving this… THIS your papa’s shoes,” she told him. Her beagle was still growling, but he slunk back to the boys, where the oldest inspected him for injury.

“You hungry?” Tuck piped up. He was fascinated by the stranger, impressed by his vast size, easily towering over his papa. His shaggy blond hair hung down over his face but didn’t do enough to conceal his sharp features and heavy bone structure. His body was corded with muscle and covered with a fine mat of bristling hair, giving him an almost beastly look. The woman shuddered at the sight of him, and clearly, the smell.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you haven’t eaten,” she muttered. “Were you here to rob us blind?”

“No. No…steal.” He held out his hands, and his talons retracted slightly, rehousing themselves, but they were still long, ragged and filthy. “No harm. No… need… eat.”

“Can he have stew?” Tuck suggested. “Do you like stew?” he asked Victor, who had backed himself against a tall oak in the face of the woman’s maternal wrath. The child stared up at him with blue eyes that reminded him of a young scamp that came calling not long ago.

“He’s not eating at my clean table,” his mother told him, wrinkling her nose again.

Victor was still wondering what turn of events found him bustled back to the cottage, cowering in the yard, where the two boys returned the previously clean sheets to the washing basket, chastised for taking them down from the line in the first place. The woman filled a large stock tub with pail after pail of water from the well.

“Are we doing the washing, Mama?”

“Not the clothes, Thomas,” she told him, and Victor didn’t like the gleam in her eye. She turned to him imperiously and reached for him, snapping her hand around his large, powerful wrist. She jerked him after her with surprising strength for someone so petite. “Boys, go inside and wash your hands.” Victor stared after them as they scampered off, banging the door to the cottage shut. “And you. Out of those. Chop-chop.” Victor hesitated, confusion making him frown.

“But…”

“Off!” she snapped, smacking him soundly in the hip. “They’re rags, and they’re mank. Out they go, and into the tub with you.” Victor whimpered, then snarled at her, but she reached up and soundly smacked him in the nose. Victor yipped and shrank back from her, but she gave him no sympathy.

“If you would eat, then you will bathe, man. I can’t have you at my table in your current shape.” Victor swallowed, then held out his hands entreatingly when she looked as though she would pop him one again. He made a turning gesture with his finger, pointing at her. “Oh. All right, then. You have a point. But no funny business.” She turned her back on him, arms folded, while Victor gingerly worked his way out of the nasty, tattered excuse for charred trousers. She heard them plop down onto the grass, then heard his hiss of displeasure as he climbed into the stock tub. “It’s a bit brisk,” she admitted. “Sorry.”

He suffered her toils as she scrubbed him with a brush and a lump of soap that smelled like lye and lavender. She hummed a tune under her breath as she lathered his hair. “You’re blond under all that grime,” she mused, running her hands through the thick, coarse tangles, removing bits of leaves and weeds. He grumbled unintelligibly, then roared as she poured a pail of water over his head to rinse him. “Stop your yowling,” she tsked. “Big baby.” His growls were low and plaintive as she continued to fuss over him, scrubbing the cracked, dirty soles of his feet, paring dirt from beneath his nails. He grew used to the water, which warmed slightly in the midday sunshine, and he began to relax as she scrubbed his back. 

 

Victor’s sigh of frustration was echoed by Essex in his library, where he told Remy for the third time to pay attention.

“Repeat after me: Comment-allez vous?” But Remy’s red-on-black eyes were contemplating a small, blown-glass horse twinkling in the sunlight streaming in through the window. Essex growled, stomping over to it and swatting it away. It flew against the wall and shattered, shards tinkling as they hit the marble floor and startling Remy out of his rapt daze. He jerked in surprise, and a chilling fear as he gave his creator his full attention.

Essex’s lips were a thin, displeased slash, and his nostrils were flared in frustration. His hard, flinty eyes bore into Remy’s. “Do I need to punish you to make you pay attention?” he suggested levelly.

“Father,” Remy whispered. “I’m… sorry.” Essex chafed at the endearment, finding it ill-placed.

“Call me Nathaniel,” he corrected him. His gaze was stern, and Remy grew chilled the longer he held it, cringing beneath those blank red eyes. “You need to pay attention so that you may learn, Remy. Learning helps us to reach our full potential. I won’t settle for anything less for you, and you shouldn’t for yourself. Do you understand?”

“Yes, F- Nathaniel,” he stammered, but fear trickled over him as Essex opened a subtle connection to his psyche, the channel billowing invisibly with dark, murky vapors. Remy shook his head, trying to will away the vague impressions before they could sharpen, but Essex forced him into memories that he couldn’t remember living, making him sup on their bitter taste. Remy’s eyes squeezed shut and a low whimper bubbled up from his throat. The room spun, and his slender hands reached out for purchase, but he pitched from the desk, crashing down to the cold marble. The last thing he was aware of was the wave of disgust and annoyance that Essex felt toward him, and his disappointment.

Drowning. He was drowning. Remy clutched the collar of his shirt and struggled to breathe, mouth gaping, grimacing, starved for air and his fleeting life. He felt spots bloom before his eyes, blacking out everything but his maker’s cruel red eyes and smirk. Everything around him shrank, closing in around him, blurred metal and fetid, freezing water whose only source of light was a tiny window, meant more for the purpose of looking in than out. He struggled but felt his hands bound – shackled – feeling the current of the rapidly rising water lift his hair, tangling it around his face. All he knew was fear, and that this complete betrayal by his benefactor meant his imminent demise, alone and in the dark. His breath came out in rushes of bubbles and his screams were muffled-

Madelyne’s voice cut across his low gasps and gurgles, and she ran to Remy where he lay spasming on the floor. “REMY! Oh, sweet child, what’s wrong? DOCTOR! Help him, he’s… he’s lost in a nightm-“

“He’s learning. Don’t interrupt, dear.” She glared up at him balefully, but he was nonplussed by the fire in her green eyes and the hard set of her mouth as she gathered Remy into her arms. At the tactile feel of her body against his, Remy’s chest no longer constricted, and he drew in a hungry gulp of air, clutching at her arm. His hair clung to her bodice where he leaned against her bosom, drawing in her warmth. He was so cold, chilled to the soul. He wouldn’t open his eyes. She rocked him and murmured soothingly into his soft, tousled hair.

“It’s time to eat,” she snapped. “He’s learned enough for today, Doctor.”

“That’s for me to decide.”

“He’s retreating from us both right now,” she informed him crisply. “You’d do well to remember that he’s more fragile than you and me.”

“Remember your place, dear.” Essex looked bored, but she heard the flinty edge to his voice, and Madelyne fortified her psychic shields to keep him at bay, but she heard his mind whispering poisoned sweets outside the door. Slowly, his psychic presence in Remy’s mind receded back from hers, scoffing at the barrier she put up around the young man’s memories and emotions.

“I’m well aware of my place, Nathaniel,” she dared. “My sole duty is to take care of this manor and all who dwell in it, and if necessary, to save them from themselves.”

“Is it? Charming! How quaintly you put it, Madelyne.” He tipped his head to her and made dismissive gesture. “Get him up. Set out his luncheon, and return him to his chamber.” Madelyne cursed when she saw the rivulet of blood streaking from Remy’s nose, ruining his fine linen shirt. Remy raised a shaking hand and trailed his fingers through the wetness coating his lips, staring down at it in confusion.

“Maddie?” he whispered hoarsely. “What happened?”

“You had a spell, darling, that’s all. Come, now. Come with Maddie. I’ve a lovely roast set out for you, and some sweet bread. Let’s clean you up.”

“I’m cold.”

“I know, Remy. Up with you.” She helped him to his feet, shouldering him out of the library. Behind them, Essex grunted at the sight of the crystal shards littering the floor. He squatted down and plucked up the severed head of the figurine, sighing.

“And when you have a moment, Madelyne, clean this up.”

*

Victor inhaled the chicken leg as though it would be his last, and his reluctant hostess tsked, wincing at his lack of manners at the table.

“At least you clean up all right,” she told him grudgingly. She slapped his arm soundly. “Elbows off the table!” Victor whimpered, but he never released the chicken bone. Her sons sniggered at the look of fear that their enormous dinner guest gave their mother. “Eatin’ us out of house and home,” she added. “Slow down a bit. Thomas will be home shortly. He’ll decide what to do with you.”

“Can he stay in the barn?” Petey suggested.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” She glared at Victor, but her expression softened when she looked into his solemn blue eyes.

“Thank… you,” he rumbled hoarsely. “Food… good.”

“The food is good,” she repeated, correcting him. “Need to work on your speech a bit, sir.”

“Not… good… talk.” He shrugged hopelessly, ill-equipped at finding the words she seemed to demand, and frustration simmered inside him, remembering Essex’s disappoint and vague expectations. 

“Napkin.” She thrust the cloth at him, which he stared down at in confusion, until she began wiping her own fingers with emphasis. He copied the gesture, and Petey nodded.

“That’s it. Those are good manners,” he encouraged. “How did you get so big?”

“Those aren’t good manners, young man,” his mother informed him. “We don’t ask people rude questions.”

“Made… this way,” Victor offered humbly.

“Yes, the good Lord did make you that way,” the boys’ mother agreed, and only then did she look less mulish.

“Not… Lord.” Victor opened his mouth, then closed it again.

“What?”

“Not-“ His attempt to explain was cut short by the bang of the door slamming open. 

“Thomas! You know better than that, and you’ll let the flies in!”

“Sound a little happy that I’ve arrived home for supper, Aggie!” he shouted. His boys scrambled up from the table and ran to him, and he scooped them up in his arms after setting down his pack and meal pail. “Unless you’re waiting to show me later…”

“HUSH!” She got up and flicked him with a tea towel, giving him a brief, sharp snap. Victor cringed again, but he was relieved not to be the focus of her ire this time. Thomas looked up from his sons’ glowing faces at their guest. “Who’s this, then?”

“Victor,” he answered, standing to his full height; the chair skidded back as he did so, scraping against the floor. Thomas slowly released his boys, but then shoved them behind him as he, too, stood before the towering, feral-looking giant.

“Enormous,” he muttered. “Erm… Victor, is it? How did you come to my dinner table? What brought you here?” He turned to Agatha, who only sighed.

“Found him poking around out back. Perhaps you could find a use for him, Thomas.”

“Woman, are you mad?” He took her aside by the arm, marching her back toward their bedroom. The boys went back to the supper table, and Tucker circled around it, helping himself to the potato bowl. He lobbed a large scoop of mash onto his own plate, then another onto Victor’s.

“Eat some more,” Petey told him around a mouthful of carrots. “Good, isn’t it?” Victor nodded, then reluctantly sat back down. He could hear the adults’ conversation, even though they spoke in raspy whispers, and the long hallway and wooden door separated him from them.

“Were you looking at the same man I was a moment ago when you let him in, woman?”

“Have you listened to him?” she shot back. “He wouldn’t harm a fly; I imagine he wouldn’t know how. Scared of his own shadow, that one.”

“We don’t take in strays, Aggie. Or strangers. What’s this one’s story?”

“Difficult to tell, and he’s scarcely able to tell you himself. Think he’s ‘touched,’ Thomas. He’s pitiful, really. It looked as though someone had mistreated him.”

“Ridiculous. There’s not a mark on him. He could be from bedlam. A madman, a convict, or worse…!”

“That’s not the impression I get, Thomas.”

“He’s not staying here with you and the children.”

“Then he won’t,” she told him simply.

“I mean it, Aggie Jones!”

“Of course you do.” Her tone was placating. Victor heard him sink down to the mattress and the sounds of boots being pulled off as she bustled around the room. Victor thoughtfully gnawed on the remainder of his chicken legs, stripping it clean. The scrape of his fangs against the bone soothed him. Tucker was imitating him until Petey kicked him to make him stop.

“We can’t take him in. We should probably call the authorities.”

“And what will we tell them, Thomas? That he was wandering around, naked and dirty, and he scared our dog?”

“NAKED?”

“Aye. Not bashful, that one. Still thinking that someone mistreated him. Those eyes of his have seen some dark things, Thomas. Just look into them. Listen to him. We may not be able to give him shelter-“

“Not on your life!” Thomas snapped.

“-but we should show him mercy,” she finished. Victor heard the heavy silence between them, and he savored the mashed potatoes silently, trying to make them last.

Then, “The barn. It will have to do for tonight. But tomorrow, he has to go, Aggie. I don’t care where. Think about the children.”

“They had him equally cowed when they found him, dear.”

“When THEY found him? A naked stranger? AGGIE!”

“Hush and wash up, Thomas. Dinner’s getting cold. I saved you some chicken.” She bustled out before he could get his hands on her again to tug her back, and Victor tried to look innocent, somewhat difficult when he hadn’t mastered subtlety under Essex’s tutelage.

“It’s the barn for you tonight,” Aggie informed him crisply. “I’ve some spare blankets. Steer clear of Bessie. She’s a mean old bitch when she wants to be, which is all the time.”

“She’s our mule,” Petey explained. “She kicked Papa, once.”

“You boys already said grace?” Thomas inquired as he sat and spread his napkin over his lap. They nodded.

“Yes, Papa.” He said his own silent one, bowing his head. Victor watched him in confusion, having no clue who he was communing with or the importance of it.

Whoever it was, they couldn’t be more intimidating than Agatha.

*

Despite making his bed on the hard ground, the only barrier between him and the hay-strewn dirt a threadbare blanket, Victor woke up refreshed and relieved to find himself in an open, rustic setting, no gleaming metal or scowling portraits to be found. The odors of mildew and manure didn’t bother him. Bessie wailed at him and lashed her tail back and forth; Victor answered her with a warning growl, and she shied back in her stall. Victor rose and dusted himself off, dragging the blanket after him. He dropped it into Aggie’s wash basket. He found her waiting inside the back door, hair straggly and tousled around her yawning face. As her vision cleared, she gave him something approaching a smile.

“Coffee and breakfast, and then it’s off with you,” she told him. “Thomas will take you to the circus manager soon. They’ll know what to do with you. I don’t know your story, Victor, and I don’t imagine you could tell it to me.”

“Victor… hurts,” he explained. “No… place. No… friend.” He couldn’t hold her gaze, and his blue eyes skimmed away from her. He stood clenching his fists, exhaling deep gusts through his nose. Agatha tensed, then remembered her earlier purpose.

“Come, let me fix your plate.” Spot barked as Victor entered the house, but he heeled by his feet as he came to the table, then laid over them while the family said grace. Victor bowed his head obediently, but the gesture felt no more meaningful than before. All he could think of was his submission to Essex, always supplicating, never pleasing him, and he smothered a low growl. Agatha cracked open one eye over her clasped hands, and he settled down.

The fried breakfast filled his stomach pleasantly, washed down by the acidic, harsh coffee that warmed him against the chilly morning. Thomas sighed over the loss of his shirt, even though it strained at the seams across Victor’s broad chest, the hems of the sleeves not even reaching his wrists. “Let’s go, then,” Thomas ordered gruffly. “I’ve work to get to, myself, and we can’t dawdle.”

“Goodbye, Victor,” Petey told him solemnly. Tuck clambered against his side and waved, giving him a gappy smile. Victor nodded and returned the salute.

“Good… Bye.”

“Boys, help me with the washing,” Agatha told them, turning her back on the sight of the retreating giant, lest she soften toward him. He still looked so vulnerable and ill-prepared for his journey, but there was no help for it. Thomas beckoned to Victor to climb up onto the other side of the wagon’s seat, and when Thomas snapped the reins, the horses seemed to struggle under the weight of the additional, massive passenger. They made their way to the gravel road in silence. Thomas lit his hand-rolled cigarette with a match, and Victor cringed beside him at the stench of smoke and the glowing red ember before Thomas waved it out. 

“Sorry I don’t have another smoke,” Thomas offered as he drew the fumes into his lungs. 

“No… want.”

“Well, all right, then.” Thomas looked slightly offended. They rode along, and as they neared the village, Victor began to hear the racket of its denizens as they started their work day. He watched tramps scuffle by in dirty garb, carrying meager packs down the road in the hopes that they would find food or spare coin. Victor smelled the stench of stale garbage and sewage beneath the more enticing ones of food vendor carts. He watched women hang laundry over window sills and banging carpets clean from doorways, watching their children play in the dirt, feeding anthills with crumbs before demolishing them with broken twigs.

“Circus is setting up right down the road, more on the outskirts. Mayor doesn’t like the noise,” Thomas explained. “Hope you’re not this bashful when you meet their boss, or he’ll have little use for you.”

“Victor… work,” he told him.

“Well, you’ll have to, won’t you?” The concept was still a foreign one to him, and Victor was already earning stares from the locals. He ducked his head, ashamed of his appearance even though he was finally clean, or at least clean enough. He’d bathed more recently than some of his gawkers, if his brief glance was correct.

As Thomas promised, after their meandering ride through town, they turned their way onto the dusty road, and Victor saw three garish, striped tents being erected by a large work crew, all of them motley characters. As Thomas rode up, Victor prepared himself for stares and baleful looks, but they only glanced briefly at him as they went back to their labors, rigging and securing ropes with enormous spikes and weighted chains. Victor found himself intrigued by the bustle, even though the noise unsettled him. He heard a variety of animal sounds assail him, including the roars of the big cats and the bellow of elephants, completely foreign; what strange world was this?

“This is it,” Thomas informed him before he could make up his mind if it was where he wanted to be. “May Fortune smile on you, man. It’s a cruel world.” Victor grunted in confusion, then climbed down from the wagon, resigned. Thomas didn’t look back at him as he rode off, not liking the looks of the circus folk enough to trust them. 

“Oy, he’s a giant!” one of them cried out. Victor turned toward the shout with a low snarl. 

“Fucking animal,” the man decided, eyeing Victor up and down. “Don’t bare those teeth at me, or it’s into the cage with ya!” His eyes gleamed, and his grin was missing teeth. His garb was grubby, and Victor knew on some level that this man hardly had anymore than he did, but at the mention of the word “cage,” Victor rushed at him, growling and snarling. His eyes dilated and glowed a feral gold. Spittle flecked his lips as they stretched back from his teeth, and the worker dropped his rigging from nerveless fingers. “Get back! BACK!” The sounds of banging hammers and the corralled animals were mayhem to Victor’s ears, but were drowned out in the rush of his own rapid pulse and heartbeat. The man scrambled backward, stumbling, before he turned tail and ran. Victor barreled after him, shoving aside a man of dwarfish stature and bowed legs.

“HEY! Watch those big feet!” Victor’s stride was long and thundering, and he wove between the shocked onlookers effortlessly, chasing down his prey. The man’s panting gasps and broken curses came back to him, and Victor narrowly missed him with a swipe of his claws. He watched him stumble through a horse trough; Victor leapt over it, then tackled him, brawny arms snapping around his soaked legs. His mocker cursed and bellowed as he hit the unforgiving ground, flesh abraded by the straw and dirt and burned by the friction of his messy landing. His whole body throbbed, and he spit out bits of grass as Victor dragged him back by the ankles, flipping him over.

He was staring into the golden eyes of Death. Victor growled and roared at him, and with a mighty slap, his talons slashed his face, just shy of his vulnerable throat. His skin bled fire and the man screamed, drawing his bloodstained hand back from the burning, oozing wound. Victor curled his fist into his collar and prepared to strike him again, but a shrill, feminine voice rang out, halting his attack.

“Oh, no you don’t!” Victor yelped at the savage pinch of his shoulder’s vulnerable nerve, feeling a frisson of pain run down his arm in response. He turned to roar in protest, releasing the man under him with a thud, but his umbrage was met with a sharp, stinging slap. “Who do you think you are, just roughing up the help? Big Nate won’t take well to some behemoth like you just blazing in here, beating the snot out of anyone you please! Want me to tell him?” Victor snarled at her, holding his throbbing cheek, but she raised her hand to slap him again, and he backed off. He was stunned to see how petite she was, slender enough for him to snap her in half, and she tempted him to do just that.

Her face… looked unnatural. Her face was painted with some sort of makeup, almost obscuring her beauty more than enhancing it. Enormous, angry blue eyes stared him down and dared him to rebuke her. She wore a skimpy, garish costume covered in sparkles, and plumes of dyed ostrich feathers bobbed from her blonde hair. “You’d better listen to me, you big lug. We’re a circus, and people come for the show, not a brawl. Don’t bring trouble here, or there’ll be trouble.” She brandished her palm at him again, and her nails were painted blood red. “Understand?” Victor nodded mutely, and the hectic amber color receded from his eyes, returning them to their customary blue. The young woman snorted in disgust, giving him a look of scorn. She turned to the man on the ground and tugged him up by the elbow. “Get back to work,” she snapped at him. She stalked off toward a small booth at the center of the tent. “BIG NATE! Come out here and deal with this clown!” Victor growled, and the man he’d chased made his escape while the opportunity presented itself.

Victor sighed in frustration. The circus staff went about their business once the show was over, but they snickered at their resident star’s bluster, whistling in her wake at the sight of her figure in the revealing costume. “What’s all this nonsense? Who’s stirring up trouble when there’s work to do?” Victor heard the irritated baritone that almost reminded him of Essex, but not as smooth or cultured. The blonde led him outside, and Victor noticed he was an imposing man of middle years with light brown hair streaked with gray. He bore a thick network of scars over where his eye was supposed to be, and he was easily about six-foot-two, burly, and thick as a tree trunk. 

“Don’t make me be the mean, cranky bastard everyone knows I am, making me take time out of my day to set you straight,” he told Victor as he strode up to him. He crossed his arms across his chest, and Victor’s nostrils flared with challenge. “You don’t raise a ruckus under my big top when there’s work to do and money to be made.”

“Him,” Victor told him, pointing after the weasely man cowering by the animal pens.

“What? Skeevy Pete?”

“Said… put me… cage.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding…” He turned to the girl, who was lighting herself a cigarette and watching them in amusement. “Where did you find this one?”

“He was beating the crap out of Pete,” she shrugged. “Don’t know why.”

“He said he was going to put this one in a cage,” Nate remarked, cocking his head, prompting her to provide a better explanation.

“You’ve got me. Like he could’ve anyway. Look at this bruiser.”

“I’m looking.” Nate looked up at all of the man in his ill-fitting clothes. He reached up and pried Victor’s upper lip back, exposing his canines. “Damn.” Victor jerked back and raised one taloned hand to strike him, but Nate shook his head, waving him off. “Why’re you here?”

“Work!” Victor insisted, beating his fist against his chest with emphasis. “Want… work!”

“Work, huh? What do you think someone like you could do for someone like me? You’re big, and I’m betting your strong as an ox, but you can’t handle yourself all that well if Tabby gave you a run for your money.”

“Wasn’t hard,” she snorted, pulling a face before going back to her smoke. Victor wrinkled his nose at her poor habits, but Nate caught his attention again.

“Hey, eyes on me, brute! I said, what do you think you can do for me?” Victor scanned the area, watching the crew securing the rigging.

“Pull… ropes.” He pointed at the spikes. “Hammer.”

“Yeah, yeah. What else?”

“He can clean up after those nasty elephants. And feed the lions,” the little, sharp-tongued blonde suggested. “I know I ain’t gonna do it.” Nate sighed, then shrugged. Hope flickered in Victor’s breast. Nate cupped his hand around his mouth and shouted.

“GIBNY! I need you here!” Victor watched a short, burly blond man with craggy features loped over. His posture was kyphotic, and his fingers were gnarled, with little ability to uncurl themselves from fists, and his fingernails were talonlike, like Victor’s. Victor instinctively bared his teeth at him, and the man shuffled back, averting his eyes. Victor huffed, then growled again. The shorted man faced him, then, and growled back. Open challenge stiffened Victor’s spine. “That’s enough of that,” Nate snapped. “Gibny, put him to work. Start setting up the last tent and then take him to the pens. You don’t want those cats to feed themselves.”

“Yeah, I hear ya,” he complained. “This is what you’re bringing on, now?”

“I’m bringin’ on men who want to work, not lollygag.” He stared up at Victor, then cuffed him in the shoulder. “Well, go on, already, brute, quit your lollygagging! MOVE!” Victor grunted in umbrage, but Gibney caught his large wrist in his fist and dragged him along after him.

“You heard ‘im,” Gibny muttered. “When Big Nate says move, y’move, plain and simple. What was your name again?”

“Victor,” he huffed. Despite his lankier stride, he was having a hard time keeping up with Gibny as they wove through the tide of workers and performers. Gibny roughly jostled a juggler out of the way, making him drop his brightly colored balls in the grass. “HEY!” His cry was cut short as he caught sight of the giant that Gibny dragged along with him, and Victor grunted at him, nonplussed. 

They stopped short of an enormous, rusted trunk of tools. Gibney reached in and extracted a huge hammer. He motioned to the men securing a rope to one of the spikes they’d just set. “Do your thing, man.” He gave him one of the spikes and nodded. “Give it a try.”

Victor turned the spike in his hand thoughtfully, then planted it where Gibny indicated, hammer poised. At the gnarled feral’s nod, he hefted the hammer and swung it down so sharply it practically whistled through the air. Gibney jumped back as the hammer drove the spike down all the way up to its neck with one stroke. “BUGGER!” he cried. Victor cocked his head; hadn’t he just done what he’d been told?

“It’s too deep,” he chided him, but he whistled in admiration. “A little less ‘oomph’ on the next one, and you’ve got it. We’ve twenty more to go, brute. Then it’s on to the pens.”

“Victor,” he corrected him. Gibny rolled his eyes.

“Call ‘em like I see ‘em.” Victor growled under his breath, but Gibny clapped him on the back and handed him the next spike.

*

Logan wandered into the small, darkened shop, feeling the pall settle over him as he entered the salon. The windows were obscured by black velvet drapes that blocked out the sunlight and commotion from the street. The space was elegantly furnished but bland. Logan remained standing to avoid sitting on the brocade upholstered chairs in his dusty clothing, having already wiped his boots on the mat outside the door.

He rang the small copper bell sitting on the escritoire to summon his longtime associate, and Hank didn’t leave him waiting long. Heavy, clumping footsteps and the scent of tea preceded the burly undertaker into the salon, and he offered Logan a solemn smile.

“Your ears must have been burning.”

“I’ve been keeping them open.” Logan handed him his battered copy of the morning edition over the counter. “And I’ve been keeping busy.”

“So it would seem.” Hank gestured to his fine china cup of fragrant tea. “I’ve some lovely oolong, or a nice jasmine, if you’d like some?”

“Sounds fancy. I don’t do fancy.” They both knew why he was there, but Hank sighed anyway, done with pleasantries and ready for business.

“Two plots. Both adult males. The families have chosen Greymalkin Cemetery.”

“Are the plots marked?”

“Of course. Leave enough room for a full stone on the one. He was married. His wife’s family purchased a double plot, preemptively.” Hank studied his tea before taking a sip. “She’s not doing well.” Logan took back his newspaper and folded it back into his coat. “They selected a lovely casket. Blue satin’s all the rage.”

“Hope ta hell ya aren’t startin’ t’enjoy your job that much, Hank.”

“I provide a necessary service to devastated families, Logan. What we do,” and he meant himself and Logan, “is give them closure and the last tangible memory they have of their loved ones before they’re laid to rest.” He nodded to the paper Logan put away, still protruding slightly from his pocket. “Should his wife remember him lying broken and bleeding in the woods, missing his hand and foot, left to the wolves to gnaw, or should her last sight of him before the lid goes down be of him sleeping peacefully on fine linens that call to mind his marital bed?” Hank removed his glasses and polished their delicate lenses until they shone; their stems were dwarfed by his large, almost apelike hands. 

“When my day comes, Hank,” Logan mused, “no blue satin. No one’ll give a damn, least of all me.” He didn’t add that he would likely outlive Henry, in any event.

“It will hardly be up to you. Leave it up to your loved ones.”

“Better if we leave it up to me.” Hank scribbled something on a scrap of paper and slid it across the counter.

“Those are the plot numbers. The service is two days from now.” Logan tucked it into his pocket. “I can’t interest you in any tea?” His voice was hopeful. He never liked the hard set of Logan’s mouth or the dead look in his eyes.

“When you brew me a cup of tea that drinks like a mug of ale, Hank.”


	7. Pawns, Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The game pieces converge across the board. The grave digger meets the reanimated man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still slow going. Still composing on my phone. The Inner Circle was likely to show up at some point, along with just about every Claremont Marvel villain imaginable. You knew this. Part II will have more Logan in it. Some, anyway.

Harry nodded to Logan as he took his favorite stool. " No offense, old man, but when you're heavy in the purse, I know families are crying. The usual?" He was already filling a tankard. Logan chuckled.

"Make it two." Harry nodded over his shoulder and set down the first drink as Logan pulled two silver coins from his pocket and laid them on the bar.

"You made it in before the rain started," Harry told him cheerfully. "Going to be a wet one tonight." Logan grunted into his ale, shrugging.

"Smelled like it all day." He actually enjoyed the fresh, sweet petrichor, which enhanced the rich scent of overturned soil and grass. Logan spent the last several hours creating a resting place for an eighty-year-old gent who succumbed to pneumonia. Logan envied him, old enough to have lived a full life of usefulness, raised a family and to have said goodbye to the people who mattered; moreover, he wasn't cursed to watch entire generations turn to ashes before him, everything else moving forward as he stood still. Logan washed the bitterness of his thoughts away with the dark ale, savoring the pungent hops.

"The circus is back. Big top's already up."

"That'll bring every kind of character out of the woodwork."

"It's good for business," Harry argued.

"I ain't one for crowds," Logan muttered.

"I might turn up for it one night," Harry considered. 

"This place never sleeps, man. None of this lot would let you lock up and take the night off." Harry scratched his chin in thought.

"Have you ever run a bar?" Logan looked up from his depleted drink in surprise.

"You're joking."

"Not in the least, old friend. Have you?" Logan was flummoxed. He scratched his head for a moment and searched, really searched his memory for any past experience he might have had, doing such a job. After so many decades, things looked a bit fuzzy.

"Hnnnh...not much of a people person, Harry." But then he had a thought. "Hank sure is, though." Harry cocked his head.

"You sure about that? McCoy seems like an decent fella, Logan, but letting him run a bar?"

"He's good with people. All types. He's good with money. He knows his liquor, even the fancy kind." Harry knew that much was true. "If anything, bub, I might consider helping out at the door and minding the riff-raff so they don't tear your place up." Harry beamed.

"That settles it. I'm telling my wife when I get home that we're having a night out at the circus!"

*

Essex watched Remy from one side of the ball room, nursing his glass of claret while Madelyne guided Remy in a series of elegant, complicated steps. Music from a phonograph filled the room, and Remy's smile was infectious; he loved music, and Essex would often treat him to some when he learned his lessons well. The past few weeks had gone by quickly. Essex immersed himself fully in molding and shaping Remy into a suave, confident man of culture and knowledge. Remy devoured every new thing Essex taught him and was a quick study. French, literature, geography, botany, biology, anatomy, mathematics, physics, foreign history, art history, music theory, all of it came to Remy like breathing.

For now, he was enjoying himself immensely. Madelyne led him in a graceful waltz, and then let him take a turn. Her cheeks were pink from laughing, and he absorbed her amusement through his empathy. By the same token, Madelyne waded through the calm stillness of his mind, finding no distress or any trace, for the moment, of the violent memories that Essex ripped from his subconscious, leftovers of his donors' previous lives.

His education included more than intellectual pursuits. Essex was intrigued by Remy's unusual ability to create and control kinetic energy. Remy manifested his gift unconsciously at times, occasionally charging small objects without meaning to. One afternoon, while studying his lesson in Greek mythology, Remy was humming to himself, idly twirling a pen through his long fingers. Then, like now, the soft strains of classical music filled the library, and he grew absorbed in it. Each time he rolled the silver pen from index finger to pinkie, it glowed red and crackled slightly, but the phenomenon would fade when he rolled it back.

"Remy!" Essex exclaimed sternly, startling him. Remy's fingers flicked the own inadvertently, sending it flying. It still glowed, this time throwing off hectic sparks and crackling loudly with its flight. The pen exploded with impact, leaving a burnt black smudge and small crater behind in the floor tile. Essex's eyes gleamed with excitement.

If the power still coursed through his body, it could be controlled, and honed. Essex wondered why Remy hadn't manifested it again since the night of his awakening. He brought it up during his meeting with Nur over cognac

"Homo superior. It's in his genes. It no doubt was in the donor's original cells, perhaps a latent gift. That would certainly explain why Victor wasn't all that exceptional, even though you followed the same steps on bringing him to life." Essex growled under his breath.

"Victor was ...flawed. I was impatient, and it showed in my workmanship."

"Flaws," Nur chuckled. "Never disparage flaws, dear Nathaniel. They give your work character. And, of course, a fail-safe. He's powerful, but you can control him, can't you?" Essex paled. 

"Of course I can," he snapped. "But in the meantime... Think of the possibilities. All that power. And his training is coming along beautifully."

"Excellent." En Sabah Nur sighed and regarded Essex fondly. "You've made me so proud. I've always wanted this for you, Nathaniel. The sheer, unbridled satisfaction of knowing you've created something truly exquisite." He clapped him on the shoulder, and Essex shivered at his next words.

"It's the same way I feel whenever I look at you."

*  
Victor watched Tabitha from where he was kneeling on the ground, securing one of the ropes in a sturdy knot. She was out of her elaborate costume, garbed only in white pantaloons and a faded pink camisole, padding around in a pair of flat black slippers. She was practicing her routines with a set of freshly sharpened knives, humming to herself as she skillfully juggled them in the air. Victor stared in awe. The sunlight that shone through the gap in the big top illuminated her blonde hair, setting it ablaze, caressing her flawless skin.

Victor yelped at the swat upside the head that he had coming. "Eyes back in yer head, oaf! Get back to work, before Nate notices ya laggin'!" Kyle shook his head, but he smirked. "She is a nice piece, though, ain't she?" Victor nodded and gave a little grunt of approval.

He'd fallen into a grueling, yet comfortable routine of life in the circus. Every morning, Kyle or one of the other haulers woke him at dawn - the method ranged from a casual kick to a dash from a bucket of water, both of which he could do without, if he had to be honest - and then Victor would be worked to the bone until sundown. 

Taking care of the menagerie of beasts came easily to Victor, and what's more, he enjoyed it. He had a strange kinship with them, particularly the predators snarling and pacing in their cages. The horses were the exception; they whinnied and screamed, bucking and rearing in their stalls every time he walked by or came in to muck them out. Victor shied away from them, too, not keen on getting too close to their hooves. 

But the big cats adored him. Unlike the other handlers in Nate Grey's crew, Victor had an abiding respect for them, awed by their might and beauty. When he went into their cages to clean them out or to feed them, they hunkered up to him, giving him guttural greetings and purrs, butting against his hands and knees for his rough caresses. The first time Kyle witnessed it, he almost dropped the rigging he was carrying as he just stared, agape.

"What the hell...? Tabby, are you seeing this?" Tabitha looked up from polishing her knives and wandered closer. She tsked.

"So he's a cat person. What am I seeing? Nate doesn't pay him to babysit tigers all day. There are other things he could be doing." Yet her lips twitched as she watched Victor curl his long, thick fingers through the male lion's mane with a look of contentment on his face. 

Victor didn't know how to be subtle. Essex never felt the need to teach him the social niceties expected of him, and he didn't have a clue how to behave around ladies.

They scared him shitless.

Madelyne had been the exception, with her sweet tones and constantly plying him with treats, but she treated him less like a man and more like an overgrown four-year-old, or even a puppy. The other women under Nate's big top hung back as he passed, put off by his size and shaggy appearance. The other handlers weren't so discreet. They enjoyed the greenhorn in their midst, making sport of him and prancing him mercilessly. Victor would stare, too confused to be angry every time, then hurt when they would bellow with laughter. Distracting him to make him step in phantom dung, rigging buckets over doorways, putting tacks in his chairs, Victor was fair game for it all. Yet he worked so hard, and Nate grudgingly began to pay him a meager wage. Kyle, the only one who showed him anything resembling friendship, was usually there to laughingly dust him off or to help pick him up off the ground.

Tabitha paused in throwing one of her knives at her practice target sitting atop two hay bales and glared. "What are you staring at, oaf! Eyes back in your head!" Victor looked away, flushing, but moments later he was glancing at her again as she hurled the knives one at a time, hitting the holey, worn-out bullseye. One of the wags pushed the large wooden wheel out into the open on its cart and unloaded it for her. Victor noticed the straps and harnesses screwed into its face, wondering what it was for. The outline of a human body was carefully painted in the center, and there were knife holes around the edges of the wheel, but very few toward the center. That sparked Victor's curiosity.

"Look lively, eh?" Kyle told him. "Might end up her new partner for Tab's act if you're not careful. Don't make her mad."

"Part...ner?" Victor tested the word, not knowing what to do with it. "What...act?"

"Oh, it's a doozy. She scared off a few targets- er, partners with that one. Guess if you get nicked a few times, it'll make a body skittish. See that wheel?" Victor nodded solemnly. "We truss up her partner in the middle. Like this." Kyle demonstrated with a wide stance, arms stretched out to his sides. "Give the ol' wheel a big spin. Then WHAP-WHAP-WHAP!" He mimed a quick throw. "Lady Tabitha the Terrifying wields her shining, steady blade, fast and true!" Kyle chuckled. "I ain't stupid enough to get up there. Poor Bobby nearly lost an eye." Then Kyle grinned at him, elbowing Victor in the side. “Maybe you’re brave enough to give it a go? Be tab’s partner, yeh?”

“Partner,” Victor repeated quietly, considering the implications.

Tabitha was still rude to him, certainly. Any efforts he made at being polite were met with scorn and breathy growls of annoyance. He carried her costume trunks whenever she needed a bustle packed all the way in the one that was stacked under a half a dozen boxes. He held her doors and had even lifted her up onto his back when the one of the horse troughs was knocked over, creating a muddy slick that surely would have ruined her favorite slippers. She smelled like rosewater, and of warm, soft, feminine skin; the contact of her slight bulk against his back inflamed his senses, making him too aware of her flesh, and of his own… sensitivity. When he set her down on dry ground, listening to her grouse and grumble the whole time about “and don’t even THINK of dropping me, you behemoth,” Victor’s cheeks were bright pink, and he had to avert his blue eyes. “My hero,” she muttered as she walked off. “Get back to work, ya mook.”

Despite the abuse, his mind teemed with ideas of how else he could please her. Help her. Make himself useful to her. Victor gave in to his curiosity and lumbered toward the large spinning wheel. He traced his fingers over the pegs and gave one an experimental flick. The wheel creaked slightly as it spun itself three-quarters of the way ‘round, and from behind him, Gibny barked a laugh.

“’E’s gonna do it! Victor wants to be Tabby’s target!” he jeered, but he was impressed by the big brute’s nerve, if anything, and he was dying to see how it all panned out. Tabitha blew a hasty puff of smoke out of the corner of her mouth and scowled.

“Get out of the way, oaf! I need to practice!”

“That’s the whole point, baby girl,” Gibny corrected her. “Ol’ Victor’s plannin’ on helpin’ out with your act! Strap him up! Put him on the wheel. Give it a go!”

“What? Ridiculous,” she snorted. “He probably won’t even fit in the straps. He’s too big.”

“Try him on,” Gibny argued, shrugging. “C’mon, Victor, let’s see what you’ve got. Let’s see here…” He hummed thoughtfully as he tugged on the leather straps. They seemed sturdy enough, but Victor was a huge fellow, indeed. “C’mon, now. Back against the wheel. Spread your legs.” Gibny gave his inner ankle a little kick to prod him, and Victor obeyed with a grunt. The wheel was hard and splintered in spots, but he didn’t mind as Gibny began to fiddle with the straps. “Just stretch out a bit, there we go, arm up. Now, the other one.” The straps were tight around his thick wrists, but Victor didn’t want to complain and invite Gibny’s scorn – no more of it than usual – and he found it difficult when he strapped in his ankles too, having to step up onto the small pegs that held him above the ground.

“Might have to adjust it… you’re no lightweight,” Gibny murmured.

“Good… partner,” Victor insisted. “Can be good. Partner. For Tabitha.” Gibny laughed again, patting Victor’s side almost fondly.

“He’s game! Let’s give him a spin?” Tabitha rolled her eyes.

“Some time today.” Gibny grinned up at Victor with his snaggly teeth.

“Hold on tight, Petunia!”

Gibny reached up and with some effort – and a guttural, strained grunt for good measure – he spun the great wheel and stood back to allow it unimpeded momentum. “Whoa,” he murmured under his breath. Victor hissed out a sound of surprise at the sensation of being barreled off his feet, head over foot, one… two… three…

Sssssssss-THUNK!

“Shit!” Gibny hissed and jerked way, way back as Tabitha began her target practice without further notice. “Warn a man, ya tramp!”

“Don’t be such a baby,” she shot back as she threw her next knife. Victor heard it – almost felt it – thud into the wood six inches shy of his ear, too fast for him to even flinch. Her muscular, lean arm drew back and hurled a third knife, and _whisssssssssttttt-THUNK_ it went, just under Victor’s arm pit, the flat of the blade kissing his flesh. The wheel gradually slowed, and Victor’s stomach continued to roll slightly. He had to shut his eyes to ground himself for a moment, but Gibny robbed him of even that much opportunity to orient himself, giving the wheel another savage spin.

“He’s a natural,” he cackled. 

“Just get back,” she whined at him impatiently, but her expression softened as she watched Victor spinning along, long blond hair flying and dusting the hay-strewn ground, eyes clenched shut. He hadn’t uttered a peep.

Gibny was right, even if she wouldn’t admit it aloud: Victor was a natural.

*

Madelyne answered the door to the two young, dark-haired, petite women and gave them a little nod of greeting. “You’re from the House of Van Dyne?”

“Indeed,” the shorter of the two informed her. “I am Madam Janet, and this is my assistant seamstress, Katherine.” Out of habit, the younger girl bobbed a curtsy. Madelyne sighed, then stepped back to let them in.

“Doctor Essex has been anxious for you to get here.”

“The roads were slick on the way here. We don’t mean to keep him waiting,” Katherine told her quickly.

“NO ONE keeps Doctor Essex waiting. You will be wise to remember that, dearie. Follow me.”

“Who are we fitting today?” Janet asked as they were led up the staircase. Both women were awed at the opulence of the doctor’s home, but they shook off a slight chill that seized them both, despite the warm day.

“You may address him as Lord Remy,” Madelyne told them, and that was all she would share. Essex was still puzzling out how to introduce Remy to society. He toyed with the idea of calling him his younger brother, or even his adopted son, but he was gravitating toward just calling him his “ward” for the sake of simplicity. Mrs. Essex had been dead too long, and too soon, to have borne him a son Remy’s age. Complicating matters even more was Essex’s inability to control his reactions to Remy whenever they were within each other’s presence.

He wouldn’t admit it, but Nathaniel Essex lusted over Remy, was consumed completely by him. No matter how much he tried to maintain some semblance of scientific detachment, to remind himself that he was just his creation, made from a few cobbled together parts, he couldn’t help but succumb to his charms, innocence and beauty.

“His suite is up here. This is where you can fit him. Do you need anything to write on?”

“We’re fine,” Katherine told her cheerfully. She looked no older than seventeen, Madelyne realized as she gave her a brief once-over. Janet Van Dyne was famous throughout the countryside for her fashionable creations and she ran a tight shop. Katherine, or Kitty as she answered to, was decked out in a smart dress with a snug basque of dark purple taffeta topped by a cropped jacket with puffed sleeves. Her black top hat was trimmed in a white lace sash and black netting, and she scratched the side of her nose with a gloved finger. If Janet’s assistant dressed that well, Madelyne surmised, then she could certainly create a more than suitable wardrobe for Remy. Janet herself wore a much more elaborate ensemble of purple and emerald greed striped taffeta with a low, almost scandalous décolletage trimmed in black lace. Her curly hair was styled in a soft pompadour crowned by a tiny jeweled cap that also framed her face in a short spray of netting. Very, very sharp.

“Would you ladies care for tea? I’m bringing some up for Remy?”

“Yes, please. Whatever you have will be lovely,” Janet assured her.

“Yes, madam.” Madelyne unlocked the door, something that gave her two guests pause; they exchanged an uneasy look between them. With her back to them, Madelyne just smiled.

“Company’s arrived for you, dear,” Madelyne pronounced. Remy looked up from his book and smiled disarmingly.

Both stylists looked about to swoon.

“Bonjour, mademoiselles,” he offered. “Enchante.” He rose and met them as they entered the suite, bowing over each of their hands. Madelyne caught the trace jumble of their thoughts, the immediate flashes of surprise mingled with attraction. Remy had that effect on the select few who had met him so far, and it amused Madelyne to see him make new victims – admirers, rather. Essex did fine work. Katherine turned beet red as he stared up into her brown eyes, his twinkling with mischief.

“Oh, my. It’s a pleasure, Lord Remy. An absolute pleasure.”

“Tell us what you fancy, and we will make it a reality,” Janet promised. “You have nice lines, sir.”

“Madam Janet Van Dyne and Miss Katherine…?” Madelyne waited expectantly, and sure enough, the child was still staring and practically grinning up at her new customer.

“Pryde. Kitty Pryde.”

“If one pets you, Kitten, will you purr?” Remy smirked. Madelyne restrained the urge to swat him.

“I’ll be bringing up that tea.” Madelyne gave him a quelling glance and projected the directive, _Behave._ Remy chuckled, then nodded. Madelyne bustled out, gently closing the door behind her. If the two women thought it was unusual that she locked the door after herself, they didn’t mention it.

By the time Madelyne brought up the tea tray, they were in the middle of measuring him and having him try on a couple of samples. “We could make this up for you in a nice black velvet if you wish, dear, or a snuff wool. You do have such nice lines,” Janet told Remy. 

“It would be nice with a dark trouser,” Kitty added. The women were chatting and fawning over him, Janet smoothing down sleeve cuffs and collars, taking the liberty of running her palm over his elegant form in the sumptuous fabrics, “dusting off” lint from his shoulders as she examined him in the mirror.

“I’d like to see you in a red satin of some sort. Perhaps a cravat?”

“Or a pleated shirt,” Kitty suggested dreamily as she wrote down measurements.

“I bow to your expertise,” Remy told them easily as they continued to fuss over him. Janet’s measuring tape flew, her fingers mapping out his dimensions, skating along the slopes and contours of his body with enthusiasm.

Madelyne stayed long enough to supervise, helpfully returning clothing samples to their hangers and garment bags. She almost swatted him again when he teasingly asked Kitty to try on her top hat, even pulling the netting down over his ruby eyes. That sent both women into gales of laughter. She was still pleased to see him in his element, comfortable, charming, laughing.

It boded well for him, really. Madelyne resumed her duties and poured them all some fragrant tea, serving them delicate wafers on tiny plates.

The women left nearly an hour later, once Remy assured them that he looked forward to wearing their masterpieces once they were delivered back to the estate. They lifted their hands to be kissed again, but he leaned in and caressed the crowns of their cheeks with his lips instead, nearly giving them heart attacks. Madelyne once again sighed as she escorted them out.

“Tell Doctor Essex that the House of Van Dyne is honored to have been given this generous commission. He won’t regret hiring our shop to outfit his ward.”

“He _won’t_ regret it,” Kitty repeated as she reached out to clasp Madelyne’s hand in both of hers.

“See to it he doesn’t, dearies,” she offered smoothly, nodding as she closed the door on them. She huffed as she went up to retrieve the tea tray. That encounter took a lot out of her; it was difficult to filter their thoughts when their emotions were projecting so strongly in Remy’s presence, but to their credit, their admiration of him was benign. 

Before she could climb the stairs, she felt Essex’s psychic summons, and she turned back down those first few steps, going instead to the study. “You rang, milord?”

“I trust things went smoothly?”

“He will be outfitted well. They’re… excited about their commission, to say the least.”

“Excellent! I’ve an errand for you, then, dear. I want you to go to their shop and buy some of their samples.”

“But, they’re going to start their custom work already-“

“I want him to have something to wear for tomorrow. I’m taking him on an outing. We’ve received an invitation to the circus.”

“The circus, milord?” Madelyne wrinkled her nose. “Lots of unsavory types there, don’t you think?”

“It’s less for my own benefit, and more for Remy’s enjoyment. And it wasn’t my idea, frankly. Shaw sent this today.” He held up a small, heavy, cream-colored envelope. “Nur must have told him about our ‘guest’ the last time they spoke.”

“Do you suppose he told him everything?” Madelyne wondered uneasily.

“Not necessarily. That might explain this, though.” He waved the envelope, sighing as he tossed it onto the side table. “The Inner Circle will be joining us.”

“Will they come back with you to the house afterward, milord?”

“It’s too soon. No.” He leaned back in his chair, templing his fingers beneath his lips. “But it will give Remy a chance to make an appearance.”

“What time is the circus?”

“Six o’clock, right after sunset.”

“Then I will go into town once I put supper on the table, Doctor.”

“I don’t know what I would do without you, darling Madelyne.”

“Starve. Fiddle with your own laundry. Spend many a cold, dark night without a fire?” she suggested cheekily. His lips twitched.

“Off with you, now.”

*

“What on earth are we gonna put on him? Nothing will fit him!” Tabitha was dismayed as the other showgirls went through the trunks, rummaging through the mens’ clothing. Victor stood off to the side in nothing but his breeches, looking confused and shivering slightly from the draft in the tent’s changing room.

“We’ll find something, quit fussing, Tab,” one of them advised hastily. “Look, this vest is nice! No sleeves.” That would help; those long, brawny arms of his would dangle and gangle out of everything they had, wouldn’t they? Tab sniffed as she held up the black and burgundy striped vest, shaking out the wrinkles.

“It’ll do. And these.” They found a pair of black pants that buttoned below his knees, exposing the long length of his muscular calves. “Throw them on, now, and be quick about it.” Victor took them hesitantly, shrugging into the vest and holding out his hands, beckoning to her to inspect him. “The _pants,_ oaf, and be snappy!” Victor rose and eyed the pants curiously. “You don’t know how clothes work?” Victor shrugged, then dropped the pants on the ground cavalierly. “Well, don’t get them all-“

Victor unbuttoned his breeches and let them drop down around his ankles. The three showgirls ceased their rummaging and shrieked, gasping and covering their eyes. “Oh, good Lord!” Victor picked up the short trousers, waving them helplessly. He pointed to the button at the cuff.

“Hard… to do…” he explained.

“You got that one off easily enough,” Tab grumbled, but her lips twisted into a smirk. “Half-wit. Honestly, you’d think no one around here saw a man’s dangly bits before.” Victor dangled significantly, his bits bobbing slightly with every move he made as she shook the pants at him. She glanced down at him, nonplussed. “You could have kept those on, you know. Hmmmm. Hnh. Then again…” She attempted to wrestle him into the pants, and they were so snug, his knees so large and knobby that she wondered how they would button the cuffs, after all. “All right, then. Might have to just let those breathe freely, oaf.”

“Pants… tight.”

“Suck it in.” She managed the button at the waist, wishing the pants tied instead. His skin felt warm beneath her fingers; the sparse gold hairs led a tapering trail over the center of his taut abdomen, below his waistline, and her mouth went dry. “You smell like an ox,” she complained, even though his sweat was relatively clean, not tinged with smoke or liquor like some of the ragtags under Nate’s big top. His blue eyes watched her intently, mouth dropped slightly open as he submitted to her efforts. She could hear him breathing. “That will have to do.” 

“He can wear Sam’s Walt’s shoes,” one of the other girls suggested, holding up a pair of flat slippers. ”Should be big enough.” Victor tried them on, and surprisingly enough, they fit without pinching his toes. That didn’t happen every day.

Tabitha dragged him over to the makeup table. “Should do something with this mess of hair you have.” She grasped a handful of it, tsking. “Has no one ever trimmed it for you?” Victor shook his head.

“No. Cut. No one… cared.” His voice broke slightly on that last word, even though his expression was calm. Victor stared down at his palms where they rested on his lap. Tabitha felt a pang of dismay.

“Someone just let you run around ragged out in the streets,” she muttered. “What’s wrong with some people, just ignoring a poor half-wit…” She dug through the drawer and found a brush and a long pair of silver shears. “You need a trim. Don’t get all fidgety.”

“Will… hold still.”

“Good oaf.” She grasped his hair and began to yank out the knots, trying not to be too rough. Bit by bit, Victor began to relax, despite the pinch of the uncomfortable pants and chafing vest. Her slender hands combed through his hair, separating mats and clumps and detangling it as she brushed. “It’s dry as straw. No one’s shown you how to care for yourself at all. It’s a damn crime.” Victor said nothing, only peered at her reflection in the mirror briefly until she scowled at him. “Quit staring.”

He didn’t tell her that it was difficult not to. He didn’t want her to stop brushing his hair.

 

He almost looked civilized when she was finished and led him out to the main ring. “You’ll come out when they announce us. You’ll be wearing this hood.” She held up the slick, black mask. “You’ll just follow me. You won’t see me throwing the knives. Gets the crowd excited, and that way, I can count on you not flinching.”

“Will hold still,” Victor repeated.

“I will hold still,” she corrected him. His speech patterns were still puzzling to her. Plenty of the villagers had never set foot in a school house, but he had no grasp of grammar. They tested the straps and decided they were intact. They had another hour before the gates opened; the clowns and showgirls were putting on their makeup. The dancing poodles’ handlers were wrangling them into their little outfits while the big cats were fed a small ration of food to keep them docile, but not so much as to make them sleepy before their performance. Victor watched Gibney pull on his costume, cursing all the while.

“Different ways to earn yer keep ‘round here, Vic.” It was a gaudy clown suit in particolors and polka dots, complete with a fluffy wig and blue mob cap that covered his shaggy blond hair. “Still don’t envy you yer place on the wheel, but get out there and give it a go.” He cackled at him, slapping his shoulder. “Look like yer wearing yer little brother’s clothes!” Victor tugged impatiently at the pants until Tabitha scolded him to stop.

*

“Do I look all right?” Remy’s voice was uncertain, almost vulnerable.

“Pretty as a picture.” Madelyne smoothed the front of his jacket, even though it had been impeccably pressed before it was delivered, with Janet’s blessing. The black velvet had a beautiful, gleaming finish and felt luscious beneath her hands. “You clean up well, duckie.”

“Aren’t you going to get dressed?” he asked, noticing she was still in her black uniform and white cap.

“I will be staying here. This is your night, Remy. You’ve earned it. You’ll be making some new friends.” She felt guilty about the lie. There was no guarantee that Essex’s colleagues would offer themselves as such when they met Remy, or when they found out what he could do.

The Inner Circle made her chafe, and Madelyne fortified her own psychic shields, locking them up tight every time they showed up on the doorstep. There was no love lost between them and Nathaniel Essex when En Sabah Nur gave the doctor his boon, and a considerable amount of funding for his “projects,” including helping him to find prime subjects and biologic material instead of favoring the Hellfire Club. It wasn’t a slight they easily forgave. They respected Essex grudgingly, still impressed by his strides in bioengineering human specimens, breeding them to be talented and powerful, shaping them to further their cause.

She groomed Remy carefully, brushing and braiding his gleaming auburn hair and tying it off with a black satin ribbon. She spritzed him with a spicy cologne and made sure his nails were trimmed and buffed. She pinned a diamond-headed pin to his lapel and straightened his top hat, absent of the netting he found so quaint on Kitty’s before. He was almost disappointed.

“Don’t make him wait, duckie. Make me proud. Enjoy yourself.”

“I’ve never been to a circus,” he mused. “I don’t think I have, anyway.”

“Then you probably haven’t.” Yet a skim of his thoughts gleaned vestiges of memories, hidden, of the man – or men – he used to be, dim, piquant echoes of the lives he’d lived. He’d been to the circus several times. His favorite act was the acrobats swinging from the trapeze. He gave her a quizzical look. She leaned up and kissed his cheek. “Be good. Here.” She handed him the polished cane with its faceted glass knob and followed him downstairs.


	8. Pawns, Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A night of introductions under the big top. And, as hinted in the last chapter summary, Remy meets Logan under extenuating circumstances.
> 
> It's electric.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bear with me. I’ve spent too long away from this, and the plot’s getting muddled. Feedback helps.

Essex paced the front hall, his polished boots clicked hectically along the marble tile. He wore his gloves if only to avoid chewing on his nails, and restlessness fueled him as the preparations for their outing were finished.

“Bring the carriage around, Mr. Suggs.”

“Yes, Dr. Essex,” the feral answered gruffly. He dashed outside to the stables, letting in a draft of fresh air. It still didn’t calm Essex’s nerves.

_He’s ready for you._ Madelyne’s soothing tones preceded Remy’s light footsteps on the stairs. _No need to fret, Doctor._ “Come take a gander at our boy,” she told him aloud. “He cleans up nice.”

Essex’s breath caught.

Remy descended the stairs, cane tucked under his arm, a vestige of a smile on his lips. He cut a dash in the black velvet waistcoat and black silk trousers that hugged his lean body like a glove. The white shirt underneath had ruffled cuffs that hung just below the hems of the jacket sleeves, drawing the eye to his long, slender fingers and perfectly buffed nails. Remy creamy skin glowed with radiant health, well complimented by the red cravat impeccably knotted at his throat. The cravat nearly matched the garnet fire of his eyes. 

He stared back at Essex expectantly, licking his lips nervously. “Is… is it all right, Nathaniel?” His voice was filled with the almost childish, anxious desire to please him.

Essex blinked.

He felt his body jolt awake at the sight of Remy’s perfection, at his obvious appeal, and he raged with pride that _this was his creation._ He circled around him slowly, taking in the details Madelyne and Janet so painstakingly put into his appearance, giving him a jaunty style.

“Success,” he murmured. “Perfection.” Essex needlessly reached out and smoothed his lapel, wanting any excuse to touch him, yet loathe to disturb Madelyne’s careful work. He couldn’t resist one brief, hungry caress of his cheek, standing so close that both men could see the other’s pupils dilate.

Madelyne cleared her throat. “Mustn’t be late. There’s Michael with the carriage.” Essex shook himself from his stupor, cursing himself for letting himself be drawn in by those eyes. They strolled out into the cool night air. Remy gave Suggs a winning smile as he bowed to them and helped them into the carriage. Essex restrained the urge to sit alongside Remy on the plush leather seat, instead letting him sit across from him. Temptation was too great in the enclosed space, with Remy’s cologne inflaming his senses, his body heat beckoning him to lean in…

He needed to keep a level head. Especially around Shaw.

Remy was delighted by the carriage ride, eyes gobbling up the sight of the trees and scenery speeding by the windows. “I can’t walk this fast,” he mused. Essex wanted to tell him _I didn’t build you for speed_ , but he merely smiled.

“It’s nice, isn’t it? It’s a privilege those with adequate funds enjoy.” Remy considered this.

“You’re… wealthy, Nathaniel. Aren’t you?”

“Very, child. Yes. From a lifetime of hard work and an inheritance left to me by my family, Lord rest their souls.” He couldn’t say that he missed them. His father reviled Nathaniel as a heretic and cast him out, but he was his only heir. He continued to stare at Remy’s serene profile. “Are you happy, Remy?” Remy looked back at him.

“Yes!”

“Happy living with me? And with Madelyne?”

“Very happy.”

“Do you know how fortunate you are? Do you realize how important it is to be sheltered and educated as you’ve been?”

“Nathaniel… is something the matter?” Essex’s voice had taken on a grave edge.

“Not at all. Tonight is a night for new discoveries. There are further things I wish to teach you, Remy. And there are some people I want you to meet.” Then Essex reached into his pocket for a small, rectangular velvet box. “Take these. You will wear them once we’ve arrived.” 

“Thank you,” he murmured, curious as he opened the lid. A small pair of spectacles with smoky gray lenses winked back up at him. He fingered their slender, silver wire frames. “I can see very well, Nathaniel.”

“They won’t improve your vision, dear boy. You and I are both… unique. I want you to cut a dash, Remy, yet I also want you to blend in. We don’t want to attract the wrong kind of attention.” Remy mulled this.

Essex had a point. Of the staff and the few guests to the house whom he’d met – or at least seen from a distance, as he spent a lot of time isolated in his suite – none of them had eyes like his, like flames licking up over coals. Essex’s eyes didn’t subscribe to nature’s palette, either, nor did his pale, gray-tinged skin, yet Remy decided he was beautiful. Unique. Essex donned his own pair, and Remy sighed, deciding compliance was better than a lengthy explanation, or the dim possibility of punishment for disobedience.

Remy was silent for the rest of the trip, enjoying the gentle rocking of the carriage along the uneven road.

*

Logan and Hank were as good as their word, filling in at Harry’s tavern as business began to pick up. Tourists were stopping in to enjoy light suppers and their first tankard of ale for the evening before heading over to the big top. Logan helped serve when the wenches couldn’t keep up with the crowd that grew increasingly raucous. Sally, a curvaceous blond who spilled out of her flimsy white blouse, bustled through the tables with heavily laden trays, dodging pinching fingers and threatening them with Logan’s judgment and evacuation if they didn’t behave.

“I need two more meads over here, Henry!” she called out above the din.

“Anything for the lovely lady,” Hank assured her fondly. She winked at him in passing and he went to the barrels, drawing two tankards full of the intoxicating, sweet brew.

“Don’t know how anyone can stand that stuff,” Logan muttered. “Can’t just order a proper ale.”

“Not everyone has your discriminating tastes, my friend.”

“Gettin’ thirsty,” Logan remarked.

“Once the crowd dies down,” Hank reminded him gently. He knew that Logan could drink any many – or woman – under the table, but he didn’t want to watch him try. Harry needed some ale left for his customers, after all. 

There was a flurry of noise at the door, and Logan saw a few customers peer out the windows and out through the frame. “Who’s that toff?” one of them cried. They watched a gorgeous carriage drive by, steered by a shaggy looking man dressed in a smart, charcoal gray uniform and cap. Logan huffed.

“Essex’s,” he muttered. “No one else rolls like that through this town.”

“He has style,” Hank said with a shrug. “I don’t begrudge him that luxury. Give me a roof that doesn’t leak, good books, a hot cup of tea and a fire to warm my feet and I have everything I need.”

“You like money,” Logan argued.

“It makes poor company. That might be why so many are eager to part with it.” He nodded to the regulars. “Just look at this crowd. Harry’s going to run out of mead.”

The crowd swelled a bit more, then thinned as people began to make their way to the circus. Logan helped Hank clean glasses and tables, wondering what brought a man like Essex to the big top, to wander amongst the commoners.

*

Suggs hitched the carriage as close as he could to the tent without blocking anyone’s way in or out. There was a trail worn in the grass from constant foot traffic, and the crowd was already lined up in droves. Suggs noticed an equally opulent carriage a few yards away, black, gleaming, and adorned with a red and black seal on the door. In the center was an intricate trident. Essex noticed it as soon as he stepped out the carriage and sighed.

“Is something wrong?” Remy inquired politely. “You look…frustrated.” Essex pasted on a smile for his benefit.

“Come along. We’ve company to meet inside.” As if he’d spoken the magic words, Essex heard, as well as felt feminine laughter in his mind. He shivered.

_We’ve reserved a box. We’re in the wings._ That was Emma. Essex felt Remy stiffen beside him.

“We’re coming,” Remy said aloud. He stared at Essex, waiting for his cue. Essex wasn’t surprised at Remy’s calm demeanor; he was accustomed to having telepaths in his head. He nodded, and they bypassed the line of people smoothly and without pause. A few of them called out in protest, tones scathing and full of disbelief.

“What, you think you’re better than us? Get back in line!”

“No cuttin’, ya skeevy bastards!”

“Ignore them,” Essex ordered. Remy flinched, feeling the hostility rolling off the crowd. It tasted bitter and unfamiliar. Yet he heard the feminine presence in his mind, almost purring.

_We can’t wait to meet you, darling._

Essex approached the ticket vendor and nodded. “Our companions have reserved a box.” He handed him the money for two tickets, and the man nodded, pulling aside the rope to allow them in. That was greeted by more jeering from the people behind them, but Essex was nonplussed. Remy followed him, and he watched the reaction from the nearby onlookers as they passed. Awe was written over their faces at the sight of the reclusive Dr. Essex and his striking young companion, both dressed to the nines. Several women in the tiered bench seats stared at him, agog at Remy’s beauty. He tried not to lock eyes too long, even with the shaded spectacles.

_You’re getting warmer, dearie._ There was that teasing lilt again. Remy smiled, wanting to unravel the mystery of where it was coming from. Essex led them to a roped off area, where a column of wooden stairs led to a penned off section of seats. The box was covered by a black awning, allowing the ticketholders who could afford it some small measure of privacy away from the scuffle of the crowd. 

The owner of the voice in his head smiled in catlike fashion, blue eyes twinkling. “We’ve been waiting for you, Remy, dear,” said one of the most beautiful creatures he’d ever laid eyes on.

“Emma. Charmed, as always. You look lovely.” Essex approached and reached down to her, kissing her hand. Beside her sat another woman, equally smug and expectant. “Selene.”

“You’re looking well, Nathaniel,” she informed him. “But you’ve been such a stranger of late.”

“Burning the midnight oil,” he shrugged. “And I’ve been taking care of some renovations to my estate. Surely you can understand the need for adequate supervision of my staff?”

“It’s hard to find decent help these days,” Emma agreed. Selene looked slightly mollified, but her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. They were lovely, but cruel.

They were still stunning. Emma was creamy-skinned and blonde, with patrician features and catlike blue eyes fringed with dark lashes. She wore all white, risking the dust of their surroundings, but it suited her delicate coloring and endless curves. Her breasts rose enticingly from the neckline of her gown; her hair was styled in elaborate curls.

Selene was her exact opposite, exotic and olive-skinned, her long ropes of jet black hair curled but hanging down her back, topped with a black netted top hat. Her black gown was trimmed with black lace, so snug she appeared dipped in ink. Her curves were just as much on display. Her lips were full and she had knife-sharp cheekbones. Her dark eyes gobbled him up.

“Don’t be shy,” she told him. “I’m Selene Gallio.”

“Emma Frost,” she told him in that sultry voice. 

“Enchante.” Remy bowed over each of their hands, and his spectacles slid down slightly, revealing his eyes. Emma’s mouth dropped open, and her hand fluttered to her chest.

“Oh. My. Nathaniel…?” Selene stared up at the doctor in wonder. “Clever man. He’s…”

“Your best work yet,” Shaw interrupted. Remy stood back, impressed by the towering ox of a man, perhaps in his late forties who approached him. His other two companions simply looked bored, until they stared into Remy’s face, taking him in. “Sebastian Shaw,” he drawled, reaching for Remy’s hand. His grip was crushingly firm. Remy grinned.

“You entertain in style,” he told him. “Charmed, sir.” If he was curious about Shaw’s odd claim, that he was Essex’s “work,” he said nothing.

“Sit! Relax, friend. We won’t bite.” Sebastian showed him to the seat beside him, beckoning to Essex to take the one on his other side. Essex fumed, not wanting to sit separately from Remy, but it couldn’t be helped. Remy and Shaw chatted as the lights in the tent died down. They perked up as they heard the opening strains of the small orchestra in the background, launching into a rollicking introduction. 

“Ladieeeees and gentlemennnnnn, I’m proud to welcome you all to Big Nate’s Big Top, home of the Thousand Marvels Circus!” The ringmaster wore a proper red jacket and tall black hat with white jodphurs, namely Nate Grey himself. He was distinguished looking and memorable, with a unique scar over his eye shaped a bit like a starburst. “We’ve delights for every taste, my friends! Dancing girls, jugglers, fearsome beasts, and the ones brave enough to tame their fury! Sit tight and prepare to be amazed by the Human Cannonball!” In the first ring out on the haystrewn floor stood a young blond in a snug gray suit, helmet tucked under his arm, who waved to the crowd with a disarming grin. “The Native Princess Danielle the Dog Charmer!” A young woman just as swarthy as Selene stood in the next ring, herding a gaggle of small trained poodles. “The Amazing Shan, World-Renowned Hypnotist!” A fair-skinned girl dressed in flowing robes and a jeweled turban profiled for the crowd and bowed. Remy enthusiastically joined in the applause. Yet as he stared around the big top while the acts prepared to begin, he was struck by the people around him, such a motley assortment of souls.

Many of them were dressed in patched garb and shoes worn thin. Remy wrinkled his nose at the various odors of the animals in their cages, mingled with those of the unwashed masses. He saw children looking delighted wearing threadbare togs, rubbing at runny noses or eyes pink with conjunctivitis. He saw the peasant class counting out meager pennies to purchase a small ration of peanuts from strolling vendors, and he thought back to his own supper, roasted pheasant and asparagus, new potatoes and a rich custard, served with a glass of port. What his own meal had cost would have fed any one of these spectators for an entire day.

It sobered him. He was stirred from his musings by Emma’s offer of her binoculars.

 

The next hour held him rapt in their box seats, obscured by the shadows while the glaring light kept his attention fully on the three rings. The Human Cannonball thrilled him, making him fear for his safety initially as he was fired out of a cannon painted with blue stars, but he careened through the air, trailing a plume of smoke- smoke! – and landed safely on the net across the tent! Remy chuckled at the antics of the trained poodles as they jumped through Danielle’s hoops and did flips. She then led them in a “song” of barks, each one calling out on her cues in rhythm to a set of bells laid out on a table. Shan performed her acts of hypnotism expertly, calling on several volunteers from the crowd. A portly washer woman entered her trance and awoke singing a complicated aria, while a boy of about twenty quoted Shakespeare, even though his shabby garb marked him as someone who likely couldn’t afford to go to school. Several others imitated barnyard animals rather convincingly.

The entire show was dizzying to the senses. He thrilled at the fire eaters spitting flames, followed by sword eaters who gave him the chills. Dancing girls spun hoops, while acrobats flung themselves from the trapeze. Every time, his breath caught; every time their hands connected with their partners or gripped the bar, he sighed in relief. Something about the clowns unnerved him; he couldn’t pin down why.

Nate’s lion tamer corralled the big cats and led them through drills, cracking the whip to send them leaping through hoops or balancing on narrow pedestals. They were noble beasts, and he felt empathy for them, sensing their fatigue and resignation. 

“Don’t look so sad, duckie,” Emma told him, reaching over Shaw to pat his hand. “It’s all in good fun.” He nodded and offered her a wan smile.

Nate took the center ring again once the cats were rounded up and herded back into their cages, away from the stimulation and racket of the crowd. “Ladies and gentlemennnnnnn, direct your attention to the center ring! Witness the skills and precision, quick hand and eagle eyes of Lady Tabitha and her Flying Daggers!” The orchestra played her intro, a raucous melee of horns and cymbals as the spotlight shone down on the petite blonde.

Under the lights, her costume glittered with faux stones and gleaming ribbons, with a bustle of blue marabou feathers trailing after her. Her legs were hosed in silk stockings and her feet shod in a nimble pair of black satin slippers. Her makeup, while garish, transformed her face beneath the lights, giving her an air of glamor and intrigue. She profiled for the crowd, blowing kisses and waving, turning and shaking her hips to make her feathers dance and twitch. The crowd hooted, cheered and cat-called, blasting shrill whistles with their fingers in approval. Then she turned and looked as though she’d just remembered something.

“Aaaannnnd, her dashing partner, VICTORRRRRRR!” Essex paled a moment, stunned at the familiar name. Unwanted memories flooded back, clouding his vision. Remy frowned, testing that name on his lips.

“Victor…”

“Someone you’re acquainted with?” Selene joked.

“Oh. No. Just… that name…” Remy still wore his dark glasses, but his brows were furrowed. He watched Tabitha run back to the entrance from which she came, and she dragged an enormous man behind her – he could only be described as a giant. He wore a hood that obscured his face entirely, but tufts of shaggy blond hair stuck out from beneath it. Remy found it odd that his hood had no eye holes, wondering at its purpose. Tabitha strolled along with him, arm looped through his and looking smug. She paused as the crew brought out the enormous spinning wheel.

“Time to shine,” she muttered. “Don’t mess this up.” Victor remained silent, but he shivered at the barrage of sounds around him, the murmurs from the crowd, the animals growling and braying in the background, unhappy with the fuss and loud music from the orchestra. His senses were overloaded and every muscle in his body was tense and bunched. Victor allowed himself to be directed to the wheel. He took his place with his back against it, raising his brawny arms for them to be buckled into the straps. The crowd was stunned at his size and bulk, a veritable freak of nature, and they hadn’t even seen his face with its craggy, feral features.

Essex’s heart was pounding in his chest. His was pallid and he began to sweat, and he picked at his cuticles anxiously. He peered at his companions, but Shaw, Emma and Selene were content to watch the performance.

No one else was that large or moved like a great loping cat. No one else would allow themselves to be led about that way in such a docile, trusting manner, yet Essex knew that side of him was likely only a memory.

He couldn’t have survived the fire. He couldn’t have, certainly…

No. This simpleton was a trained wag in an unimpressive peasant’s circus. He bore none of Victor’s hideous scars, compliments of Essex’s own hands. But why wouldn’t his heart stop pounding? He glanced over at Remy and noticed that he was transfixed, watching the man on the wheel with more than typical curiosity. “He’s huge, Nathaniel.”

“Indeed, Remy. He is, indeed.”

“Impressive,” Selene cooed. Emma made a small noise.

“Hardly,” Sebastian countered. “What kind of fool puts himself in the path of a dagger?”

“What kind joins a circus?” Selene pointed out. “Look at this rabble, Sebastian. These are humanity’s chaff and scum, scrounging for fame and mere pennies.”

“Be nice,” Emma scolded softly, tapping Selene’s hand with her folded fan.

“That one has no fear,” Selene told them. “And he has nothing to lose.” Emma handed her a small bag full of sugared, roasted almonds. “No family to miss him.”

“Everyone here could claim that,” Emma argued.

“It’s true for him,” Selene told her. “You sense it too, sister.”

Essex shivered, feeling her dark, venomous presence brushing at the corners of his mind before he quickly shoved her out. Selene didn’t look at him, but her lips curled in satisfaction. Emma hummed in contemplation as the show began. With assistance from one of the wags, Tabitha spun the great wheel, setting the hulking man pinned to it spinning with a rickety clickety-clack, clickety-clack… 

Victor braced himself for the strange vertigo of the motion carrying him, feeling the pressure building behind his eyes and the air rushing over his skin. He felt the first thunk of a dagger landing mere millimeters from his neck to the left. He felt some small measure of satisfaction that Tab wouldn’t be disappointed in him; he didn’t flinch. Nor did he move a muscle when another one landed an inch shy of his waist. 

Tabitha expertly hurled her daggers, preening each time for the crowd. She bowed to them and turned her back to Victor as Gibney spun the wheel again, keeping up the momentum. Tabitha removed a tiny mirrored compact from her bosom, snapping it open. She glanced it into it, angling it so she could see over her shoulder. She grasped the dagger by its tip and flung it forcefully over her shoulder. It wheeled through the air and struck the mark scratched above Victor’s head, a predetermined target adjusted for his height.

The crowd went wild. Women looked ready to faint, and children watched with wide eyes and crowing mouths. Victor spun ‘round and ‘round, growing dizzy, but he merely closed his eyes, focusing on the hard wood at his back, of the vision behind his eyes of Tabitha in her costume, giving him that odd, mischievous look.

The air was filled with a miasma of scents, but beneath the odor of animals and vendors’ food offerings, he caught one scent, homing in on it like a beacon in the dark. Victor’s fingers twitched. Tabitha frowned briefly when she noticed the motion. “Watch it, you big lug,” she hissed under her breath. She flung her next knife, and it flew six inches shy of his crotch. She felt rather than saw him flinch from the vibration of the knife striking wood so close to his vital parts. “That’ll teach you to flinch,” she murmured.

She finished her act after several more stunts, including a blindfold that made the crowd moan with tension, but they cheered and stamped their feet. Gibney stopped the wheel, and the lights over their ring turned down so that they could unbuckle Victor from his restraints. Victor’s head was spinning, but he managed to balance himself once his feet touched the hay-strewn ground. Victor felt his legs wobble for a brief moment, but Tabitha approached him – he caught her scent, spicy and feminine – and gripped his arm, looping hers through it like a coquette. She waved to the crowd as they departed from the ring. She managed to make it most of the way to the dressing rooms before her expression soured.

“I saw you up there getting twitchy, oaf.” She reached up and snatched off the hood. Static made his hair rise, escaping any earlier attempts at grooming. His cheeks were flushed and he looked bewildered, but expectant.

“Victor did… bad?” Her expression softened.

“No, oaf. Not bad. Not fantastic, but you got it done. My act went off without a hitch.” She stared down at his clothes. “Those are too damned small on you.” She rummaged through the discarded clothes laying over the closed trunks, finding his rough, homespun trousers. “Put your things back on. Might as well get comfortable now. You and the boys will have to tear everything down from the night soon enough.” He watched her expectantly until she gave him a slight shove. “Go. Change!” Victor meekly took his clothing behind the changing screen.

When he finished, she had disappeared, and that left him to his own devices. Victor wandered back out under the big top, remaining in the shadows along the periphery. He listened to Big Nate barking out his spiel and watched the acts, mesmerized once again by the knife-swallowers.

He felt his hands grow clammy at the sight of the fire-eaters and the jugglers who twirled flaming rods up into the air. Fire. Fire meant pain. Fire meant anguish and darkness, it meant loss-

“Come along,” Gibney told him gruffly. “There’re things to do.” He tugged his brawny arm, and Victor complied, but as he walked away… there it was again. That scent. Subtle, but… memorable.

His blue eyes scanned the tent as Gibney tried to find Victor a chore that he could handle. Victor waited for his back to be turned before he wandered off again, searching the crowd, drawing in the scents around him, filtering out the superfluous ones.

Familiar. It was so familiar, evoking memories of discovery, of exotic eyes and lithe limbs. That tiny, nagging scent. He sniffed, following its trail, ignoring the audience members in the front rows as they wondered why the large man wasn’t in any kind of costume and didn’t’ appear to belong in any of the acts. Victor ignored them, trying to find the source of the fragrance.

Essex’s one failing in creating Victor, if he had to admit it, beyond his physical construction, was that he’d created someone – something – that he couldn’t read. Victor’s emotions always floated up to the surface of his mind, but his thoughts were a cacophony of half-formed concepts, not unlike the limited perceptions a feral animal had. There was no understanding of causation, reason, time, or logic, and it was impossible to read his intent until the fool went stumbling into something forbidden or foolish.

So he was “mind blind” when Victor approached their rows of seats, pausing just shy of the box.

One of the performers, a petite girl with dark hair, began juggling tiny balls of sparkling light. The flashes from it illuminated Victor’s face as he stared up into the stands. He stretched out his hand in supplication, suddenly recognizing and needing to touch what he was not allowed.

The new being.

He was dressed in fine clothes, all that lovely hair pulled back from his face and his eyes obscured by those strange glasses, but it was _him_ , Victor was sure of it. “Mine,” Victor whispered. “Friend…”

“Down in front!” a man bellowed. “We paid to see the show, dumb ass!” Victor grunted indignantly, but he reached out toward the stately young man, and his feet began to take him up the short steps. 

Essex turned and felt his world turn on its head. _Victor!_

Time stopped, then ran itself backward. His heart turned to lead in his chest. 

Spidery veins of terror stretched and unfurled from him, despite his face’s calm mask. Onlookers jeered the wandering goliath, unaware of the pending drama or the relationship between the two men and the beautiful stranger in their midst. 

“Calm yourself, Nathaniel.”

Emma’s voice was a smooth purr, but it held an imperious bite. “We have this well in hand.”

“Pardon?” To his credit, his voice didn’t shake. His hands did, however, as he fiddled idly with his cuff. 

“You never fail to surprise us, darling,” Emma continued. “We’ve got a hold on him. Watch. He’s retreating. So obedient,” she said, pleased. “It’s difficult to read that one.”

“Simple creature,” Selene agreed, and Essex glanced briefly at her eyes, shuddering. They glowed an eerie, almost demonic red, a manifestation that happened when she possessed one of her victims. “He relies on his senses entirely. We’ve made him doubt them.”

“Hypnotic suggestion,” Emma added. “He sees nothing. He smells nothing. He questions what he was sure he saw.”

“Effectively deaf and blind.” Selene smiled, pleased with herself. “What fine sport you’ve offered us, Nathaniel! So much nicer than this dreadful spectacle!”

“Perhaps we should retire,” Shaw said, looking bored. He smiled, however, at the sight of the blond giant as he drifted back to the back of the tent.

“Why on earth did you make him so large?” Selene asked, and damn her eyes, Essex felt the black snake crawling through his thoughts, every memory naked and vulnerable to her poison. 

“I had great expectations. Things didn’t go according to plan.”

Yet, looking at him, he was awed by the changes in him. Victor’s hair grew much longer, no longer in sparse, shaggy tufts around his scalp, with scars bisecting the flesh in bald patches. The scars… they were gone. Yet the unearthly talons, the elongated canines, those remained the same. He looked like a wild beast.

“Nathaniel? Who is that?”  
Remy’s tone was plaintive and curious. Essex did a brief scan of his thoughts, finding a spark of recognition, but no context for why he should know Victor. The memories were carefully tucked away where they would do no harm, thanks to Madelyne. Remy waited for his reply, unaware of what the exchange among his new acquaintances meant. They were charming, but they puzzled him, and the dark-haired woman chafed him. He could never explain why.

“No one,” Essex assured him. “Someone who got lost.”

The explanation was laughably, horrendously accurate.

“Poor soul,” Emma added. 

“I’ve had enough of this for tonight,” Selene announced. “Wouldn’t it be nice to have some wine?”

“Brandy,” Shaw corrected her. “There’s a little place in town. If you’re both still in the mood to mingle with the rabble.”

“It’s decided, then.” Selene rose from her seat, giving Emma a hand up before Essex could even offer, but he stood aside to let them exit the box. Remy politely followed, then helped Selene back into her delicate shawl, then helped Emma shrug into her sumptuous, fur-trimmed white cloak.

Victor watched the rest of the performance in the ring in a daze, senses masked by a layer of noise and static, sounds magnified and distorted. His vision was blurry and dizzying. Panic gripped him. The new being… he swore that he saw him… smelled his scent… “Friend,” Victor insisted aloud. “Friend _gone._ ”

“What are you on about?” Gibney groused. “There’s work to be done. Time to bring the tigers back into their cages, oaf!” From across the tent, Selene and Emma watched him, still amused by the deliciousness of his mind, untainted, a blank slate.

“Friend gone,” Victor insisted, voice growing frantic. “Friend lost. _Mine._ ”

“Don’t be stupid,” Tabitha snapped as she approached. She jerked him by the arm toward the dressing room.

“Hey!” Gibny bellowed. “He’s got work to do, y’know!”

“I don’t want him to ruin his costume,” she shot back. “Unless you aim to make him a new one. Don’t know one end of a needle from another, anyway, or your head from your arse.” Victor responded to her imperiousness, hearing the reason in her words. She gave him focus. In his short – second – life, he’d sorely lacked it. Gibny and the other hands wrangled the big, snarling cats, surly after all the stimulation and roaring with hunger. The smaller feral watched the rich toffs who bought the box for the night making their way out of the tent, and he whistled low at their finery and hoity-toity airs. The women were lookers, all right. The youngest man among them was pretty enough, and there was something compelling about him that drew the eye. It was difficult _not_ to watch him.

The telepaths slipped out of range slowly, and Victor shook himself free of their trance like waking from a mid-afternoon nap. His vision cleared, and he was able to pick out individual sounds from the clamor again, cataloguing everything and everyone around him. 

There. _There_. That scent. He was sure of it.

He broke free from Tabitha just as she wrestled him out of his gaudy vest. “HEY! GET BACK HERE!”

“No!” he barked as he hurried past several of the workers, barreling through them when they didn’t move fast enough. Outside, Sebastian, Emma and Selene climbed into their carriage; Essex and Remy returned to Suggs, Essex nodding as he held the door for them. Emma peered out the window and tutted. 

“Oh, dear. We have a tagalong.”

“Pitiful wretch. I thought we were going to make it easy on him?” Selene accused.

“One needs to accept that life is never easy,” Emma told her. Essex hit the ceiling of the carriage with his cane.

“HURRY!” he ordered as he saw Victor burst from the tent’s entrance, blue eyes searching the area madly, taloned fists clenched. Suggs snapped the reins, and the carriage glided from the yard, followed by the stylish second one.

_Harry’s,_ Essex murmured into Suggs’ mind. _And be quick about it._

Remy looked disappointed and confused. “You weren’t enjoying it, Nathaniel?”

“Not as much as I’d hoped.” Essex needed a distraction. His heart was still pounding and his temples throbbed. “What did you think?” Remy’s face lit up.

“It was wonderful!” He began to remove his glasses, then paused, watching Essex for permission. He shook his head.

“We’ve one more stop,” Essex told him. “A tavern. It’s time to broaden your horizons a bit.”

“Will it be a den of ill repute?” Remy asked. Essex’s brows lifted.

“What? Where did you learn that term, Remy?”

“From Madelyne,” he told him cheerfully.

“Of course,” Essex muttered, sighing. He really needed to have a word with his housekeeper.

They rode through town, and the carriages were parked in the street, horses hitched and their drivers pausing for a smoke under the street lanterns. The tavern was already noisy, spreading raucous cries and music through the streets. “How… colorful,” Emma remarked.

“Brandy, Emma.” Sebastian reminded her why they were there. “The club has spoiled you for any other venue.”

“The club isn’t crawling with commoners.”

“Just don’t touch anything,” Selene said, lips curling. Yet they entered the tavern comfortable in the knowledge that they were the wealthiest and most influential people in the building. The patrons slowly acknowledged them, and mouths dropped open at their finery, at the unmatched beauty and obvious wealth.

“Oh, my stars and garters,” Henry mused under his breath.”

“What’s up, Hank? Close yer mouth, or yer gonna let the flies in.”

“Don’t interrupt me, my friend. I’m enjoying the view.” Logan looked up from the glass that he was polishing.

He promptly dropped it from nerveless fingers. Henry didn’t even flinch at the sound of shattering glass. All they could both do was stare.

The two women dressed more stylishly than anyone else in the tavern were stunning, cold, and untouchable, a feast for the eyes. The blonde slowly turned to meet his gaze, as though she felt his stare, and her lips curled in a little smirk.

“Your finest table,” Shaw ordered as he approached the bar.

“Take whatever’s available, bub.” Logan was stirred from his trance, admiring the lovely curves sheathed in black and white, and he met Sebastian’s haughty look. “If the seat’s taken, it’s by paying customers. Their money’s the same color as yours.”

“How… droll,” he pronounced.

“I can show you to a perfectly nice table,” Sally assured them, pouring it on thick. She smiled shyly up at the tall, slim, chestnut-haired man in smoky glasses. Logan frowned, wondering why Sally was making an exception for this haughty crowd. Everyone’s coin was good at Harry’s, and there was no point in playing favorites.

“Aren’t you sweet?” he told her. She blushed.

“Just a moment, sweetheart!” She bustled off, and despite Logan’s earlier words, she rousted a table full of men playing cards and spilling ale all over the table from their seats, haranguing them soundly and shoving coats and caps at them. “Your asses have warmed these seats long enough, you layabouts! Make way! Make room!” The men cursed and complained loudly, even though they had finished flirting with the buxom blonde only minutes ago, promising her larger tips for favors one didn’t discuss in polite company. They grumbled on their way out, pausing briefly to stare at the new customers, then shrinking back beneath Essex’s hard gaze, lips a thin line. She showed them to their table after giving it a few hasty swipes with her rag. Emma and Selene still eyed it with distaste, but Remy beamed, bending over her hand and warming her knuckles with soft lips. She was flushing scarlet before taking their order. Logan caught that display and rolled his eyes, growling under his breath. He went back to drying glasses and neatening up behind the bar.

“Brandies all around, then?”

“Please,” Essex confirmed, sighing. She darted off toward the bar, but she kept sneaking looks back toward the compelling young man in the top hat, who was currently removing it and hanging it from a rack.

“They don’t make them like _that_ one,” Sally claimed. “Isn’t he beautiful?” Logan spared him a passing glance, only seeing him in profile, eyes shaded by those ridiculous little glasses.

“It ain’t bright in here,” Logan muttered instead. Sally gave him a slight shove.

“Brandies all around, then. Use the fancy ones.” She thrust one of the small snifters at him and nodded for him to fill five. “Go, GO!” She attended the next table over somewhat reluctantly, taking their orders while Logan and Hank filled the snifters. The night was quickly losing its charm. Mental fatigue rather than physical settled over Logan as he toiled behind the bar. His hands were quick with the drinks, and the orders came fast and furious as more of the circus goers began to arrive, slowly crowding the street in search of drinks and late suppers. He craved solitude and a reprieve from the noise, regretting his enhanced hearing and the amplified bellows of laughter and clinking glasses, wishing thoroughly that he couldn’t smell the rank sweat and cloying perfumes mixed with the scent of slowly warming ale. Logan would take digging a grave any day against the life of a tavernkeeper, certainly. 

What disturbed him most, however, as the night wore on, were the mixed, unnatural impressions that their table of toffs gave off. His lupine instincts never failed him, and everything about them felt… wrong. Unease rattled down his spine, hearing their murmured conversation over the clamor of the crowd.

“…our hard work can’t always bear fruit, can it, Nathaniel?”

“…at least you weren’t wasteful with your materials. I can’t imagine you threw anything away when you made _that_ one…”

“…he seemed awfully taken with your new pet…”

Logan frowned. Henry elbowed him sharply.

“Look lively. That gentleman would like another ale.”

“He ain’t no gentleman, Hank.”

Minutes bled into hours, and the crowd became more boisterous, less restrained. Voices raised in laughter only moments ago now bellowed accusingly, growing in anger and volume. 

“GET YOUR FILTHY PAWS OFF MY WIFE!”

“Wife?! Tell the silly tramp to stop givin’ me the eye, then!”

“TRAMP!?”

Selene leaned in toward Emma, smiling wickedly. “I told you we could make our entertainment, sister.”

“Clever girl,” Emma purred back, patting her gloved hand fondly. 

“SETTLE DOWN OVER THERE!” Logan called out over the ruckus. He tossed down his towel and clunked an ale tankard down more roughly than necessary before he leapt over the bar, nearly bowling over an enormous man cramming his maw full of beer nuts. “OY!” he called out indignantly, throwing an obscene gesture at Logan’s retreating back. Logan hauled the two men apart, thrusting his craggy face between them, so close they could see his pores. His grip on the one’s collar was stifling while he had the other by the scruff of the neck. “I won’t see you brawling in Harry’s place on my watch, do you hear me? Take that nonsense outside!”

“He was makin’ eyes at my WIFE!” Logan looked the woman up and down.

“I doubt that…” She made a sound of disgusted outrage and balled up her fist, but Logan gave her pointed look. “I’m not too much of a gentleman to throw you out, too, missus.”

“That harlot was making eyes at ME!” 

“Go make eyes outside, the lot of ya!” Logan hauled both men out, pushing through the crowd more forcefully than anyone gave the five-foot-three man credit for. “Thanks for paying in advance for your drinks,” Logan told them cheerfully. “Safe journeys!” The wife was rattled and indignant, but Logan gave her a challenging look. “I don’t care who you go home with. Just go home. _Now._ ”

“Well! I NEVER!”

“Not according to these two.” Logan jerked his thumb at the men he’d just shoved off the curb and into the street. “Now, good night.” Sally greeted him with round eyes, hand on her hip.

“Was that necessary?”

“D’you wanna explain to Harry why we let his customers start a brawl?”

Things calmed slightly, but a few minutes later, once that table was filled again, the patrons began to misbehave. Discretion left them once their drinks were poured, and men and women alike abandoned restraint. Logan saw women sitting on men’s laps, soliciting their attentions in ways that didn’t belong in a public establishment. Harry’s was a tavern, Logan knew, but it wasn’t _that_ kind of tavern…

The mischief was growing out of hand. 

“Remy, darling, has Nathaniel taught you the birds and the bees yet?” Selene teased, beckoning for him to lean in closer as she nodded at a man and woman fully engaged, necking and groping, with his hand drifting up beneath her skirt from their vantage point, easily able to see the view from under the next table. “That’s what it looks like when a woman is eager. Some would try to tell you that it’s wrong-“

“Stop, Selene,” Essex hissed. Remy’s eyes flitted away from the spectacle and focused immediately on Nathaniel, a trained response when he used that tone.

“What? Surely you’ve included this in his education?”

“Remy is learning at his own pace,” he insisted. Remy wisely remained silent, unsure of how to curtail the awkwardness, but he was tempted to go back to watching the two lovers, intrigued by the woman’s responses to his touch. Her exposed flesh appealed to Remy, but he was drawn more to the glimpse of the man’s chest he caught when she spread apart the panels of his shirt. Small thrills fluttered in his gut at the sight. His cheeks were slightly flushed, and he felt embarrassed at the frissons of amusement at his expense that he was picking up from Emma, Selene and Shaw.

“That’s enough of that,” Logan snapped, interrupting Remy’s reverie. The short, gruff barkeep approached the couple and shoved the woman’s cloak at her. “Cover up and move it along! This isn’t an inn. Go down the street to Maude’s if you’ve got an itch to scratch.”

“How… crude,” Selene murmured.

“There are more,” Emma shrugged as she drained her brandy. Logan hustled the two of them out and scanned the rest of the room for any further mischief before he went back behind the bar. 

He regretted even setting foot behind the counter soon enough; there was more for him to do out in the middle of the serving room for most of the night. Selene and Emma succeeded in starting a brawl, after all, at least indirectly. An argument over who cheated at cards – Emma gave one of them the hypnotic suggestion to hide the ace of clubs under the table – escalated quickly, as all four friends began shouting at each other, fingers practically pointing into teeth, faces reddened, tempers stoked by too much whiskey and ale. 

It was simple enough, manipulating their pheromones, reducing their serotonin response and stimulating their id. Emma had a true gift for it; Selene, by contrast, fed psychically on the negative emotions once they emerged, an energy vampire. Both women defined “femme fatale” and reveled in it with every breath. While Essex took personal pride in “creating” a man from borrowed parts, thinking to improve on God’s work, he still appreciated the fearsome, unpredictable power of a woman, more destructive with one glance than any weapon ever forged or hewn. Both women took great satisfaction in twisting their responses to stimuli – in this case, violent responses – for their own entertainment. Shaw merely observed, amused and nonplussed. He didn’t expect to soil his hands tonight. 

The middle-aged, stocky feral in rough garb was doing just fine in that regard, he noticed. His sharp hazel eyes swung in their direction when the first tankard was thrown, smashing the one hiding the ace squarely in the nose. Shaw eased back in his chair, dragging the table with him and urged his company to follow him out of harm’s way. Emma and Selene feigned horrified looks, but Selene reached for Emma’s hand under the table in delight, squeezing it as they reveled in their sport. Remy, however, looked distressed and anxious.

“Nathaniel…” Essex felt his growing fear, and the evening was catching up to him after his encounter with Victor and the barely averted disaster. He reached for Remy, hand closing around his wrist, and he felt his hammering pulse.

“Calm yourself, pet.” For truly, that’s what he was. Remy’s nostrils flared, eyes dilating dangerously behind the dark glasses.

“It’s not safe!”

“Remy…!” Chairs were shoved back, then lifted into the air as the promised brawl fully developed. Four men coming to blows over a bad turn of the cards grew into six when the table beside them found themselves jostled and their drinks that they paid good shillings for spilled, puddled on the plank floor. 

“Oh, my stars and garters,” Hank growled, dismayed. Logan rolled up his sleeves and removed his apron.

“Clear the bar. Sally, grab as many glasses as you can!” Logan leapt over the bar, and this time, the man with the beer nuts wisely ducked and scrambled for the door. Some of the patrons hugged their backs to the walls, holding their drinks out of harm’s way. Women screamed from beneath tables while men jumped in from every angle, not caring anymore who their quarrel was with as fists continued to swing. Games of darts and cards were forgotten and abandoned in favor of knuckles bruising flesh and fracturing teeth. 

Yet this was what Logan lived for. 

He relieved a young man barely old enough to shave – let alone drink Harry’s fine ale – of a mean-looking knife. “Don’t! He’ll make you eat it… _or I will._ ” He was cowed by the steely hazel eyes boring into his and the iron grip Logan had on his nape. “SCRAM!”

“That’s my pa’s knife!”

“Then you shouldn’t have taken it!” Logan roared before he tossed him outside, stumbling off the curb like the first offenders, and he interceded between an older man brandishing a broken bottle neck at the man who hid the ace. “You don’t want that on your conscience!”

“Tell ‘im, then! Dirty, cheating bastard!” 

“You’ll never drink here again,” Logan swore. “Now, put that damned thing down before I take it from you!” He rushed at Logan instead, and he sighed to himself as he disarmed him with a sharp yank, twisting his arm behind him and doubling him over. He howled in pain at the dislocated joint, dropping the bottle neck. Logan regretted the tinkling fragments all over Harry’s nice floor, knowing he’d have to sweep them up later, and explain the wasted bottle of wine. He caught sight of Sally standing on a chair in the corner, trying to stay out of harm’s way where she was boxed into a corner behind two men struggling with each other. “GET OUTSIDE, SAL! CALL THE SHERIFF!”

“I can’t get out!” she shrieked, squirming back as the men buffeted each other. 

Remy felt her helplessness like a bullet to the chest. Up he lunged from his seat, sending it skidding back. Essex lost his grip on him and watched in fascinated horror as he launched himself at the two men. He neatly tripped the first from behind, sending him sprawling on his back. When the second saw that his opponent had been taken from him, he sneered up into the elegant face. “Mind yer own, fancy pants!”

“Get away from mademoiselle,” he growled.

“Or you’ll do _what?_ ”

The man postured, rooster-stanced with chest practically thrust up against Remy’s. 

“I admire that cravat, mon ami,” Remy told him smoothly, grasping it and rubbing it between his fingers.

“What?”

He gripped it in his fist, hearing the low “urk!” that escaped the man before the silky cloth lit up with red sparks, pulsing and crackling with energy.

“Remy, NO!” Essex cried as he heard the telltale crackles and saw the man’s eyes widen in horror. _Bzzzzzzt-BAM!_ The man flew back in a crack of light and smoke, shirt burst into tatters. He lay reeling on the floor.

“What the flamin’…?” Logan smelled the strange odor of ozone in the air and saw the man go flying back, and he wondered what got into the fancy dandy in ridiculously tight trousers.

“DAEMON!” The man croaked from the floor.

“It was a parlor trick!” Essex assured him. “You’ve merely had too much to drink, friend!”

“I know what I saw, look at _what he did!_ ” he bellowed, pointing. Remy’s anxiety ratchet up several notches, aware that onlookers could have seen his fearsome gift.

“Need a hand up, friend?” Shaw asked helpfully. The man was still ranting, insisting they had a beast from the pit in their midst.

“Unholy! Daemon!” he cried again.

“So distraught,” Emma mused. “He needs help getting home.”

“Such a fine shirt,” Shaw told him. “Such a shame to ruin it.”

“But… he…” His eyes glazed over, and Essex felt himself recoil at the sensation of “brushing” against Emma’s psychic field as they manipulated him, rather skillfully, leaving him with little more than his own name. “What am I doing on the floor?”

“Up we go.” Shaw hoisted him up easily and brushed him off.

“You’re very tired,” Emma told him.

“I’m… very tired.”

“I should really go home,” Selene coached.

“I… should really go home.” He looked bewildered, and he stumbled just shy of a man who was shoved in his path, but he made his way to the door with limping gait. Remy’s expression was still wild, and he was helping Sally down from the chair in an attempt to protect her. Essex reached for him.

“Calm yourself, now, Remy, it’s all right-“

Until one of the patrons grabbed Sally and tried to push her against the wall in the scuffle, leering and wanting to take advantage of the disorder, his id twisted by Selene’s poisonous mental touch.

“NO!”

Logan heard her, too, and he reeled at her shriek! “HEY! GET YER DAMNED FILTHY HANDs OFFA HER!” She turned her face from him, features twisted in revulsion and hands pushing against his chest. Logan was wedged between two toughs who had him at a height advantage, attempting to strong-arm them apart, but he finally rolled his eyes and let the momentum carry them, bashing their heads together for lack of an eloquent argument. “Get yer damned hands offa Sal!”

Remy’s hand snapped around the man’s upper arm, but he grinned savagely up at him, and Remy found the tip of a dagger pressed up against his slender throat, just a centimeter above his cravat. “Whaddya think you can do about it, fancy boy? The pretty girl and I are gonna talk-“

Remy’s eyes glowed with energy. “Non.” The crackling sound grew in volume. The tip of the dagger just nicked his skin, and kinetic energy licked out from the tiny wound, coursing down the length of the blade. 

“What-“ _THWAM!_

Time froze. Logan’s mouth gaped as he watched the dagger explode and the slender young man stagger back. Sally’s attacker jerked back, releasing her with his good hand.

His other lay on the floor, pooling in his blood.

“I’ve had enough brandy,” Shaw announced.

“I need my beauty rest,” Selene pronounced.

“You didn’t see anything. You didn’t see anything. _You_ didn’t see anything. Go to sleep. Go to sleep. Go home to your wife.” Emma spoke each command curtly as they made their way to the front of the tavern, wiping the minds of everyone whom they passed. “Essex, BRING HIM!”

“Remy,” he told him. His words were failing him. He gripped his creation’s arm and stared into his face.

“Holy,” Logan breathed. He rushed up to Sally, who was sobbing. He gathered her against him and backed them both away from the well-dressed stranger in the odd glasses. “What the hell did you _do?_ ”

“I… I didn’t mean-“

“He did nothing. That man had an unfortunate incident with his dagger,” Essex insisted. Remy chafed at the level of psychic feedback and the swirl of negative emotions in the pub, and he felt Essex exerting his influence on Logan, attempting to warp his perceptions.

But the man was a blank slate. Brick walls surrounded his thoughts, even though his emotions were an open book. 

“Unfortunate, my ass. That’s his hand lyin’ on the ground, bub!” Logan would have separated him from it anyway, he didn’t admit aloud, since he was getting too familiar with Sally. Sally buried her face in Logan’s neck and was shivering against him. Logan’s eyes raked over Remy.

And the look of undiluted fear gave him pause. His breathing was harsh, and he looked like a cornered animal, even though his display of power gave him no reason to fear Logan at all.

“Non,” he muttered. “ I didn’t mean this… I didn’t-“

“You didn’t see us here,” Essex told Logan. He reached into his coat pocket and produced a sack of coins. He tossed it at him. Logan caught it deftly. His eyes still bore into Remy’s, and his breath caught when he noticed them, truly, for the first time.

Rubies on velvet. Radiating so much fear and anxiety, and for a moment, Logan forgot himself, his purpose in making this group of customers accountable for their part in the brawl. Remy’s eyes were locked on Logan’s face, on his protective stance as he took care of Sally, like a beast protecting its mate.

Neither saw artifice or cruel intentions in the other. Logan was stunned by the man’s scent, his aura… they were pure as snow.

“Go,” he growled. “Get out. Now. Before the sheriff shows. I’ve got enough to explain to Harry as it is, once he sees the shape this place is in.”

“Au revoir,” Essex bade him as he tugged Remy by the wrist. The usually graceful man stumbled past, eyes glued on Logan.

“Merci,” he murmured, and they disappeared. Logan heard them outside, scrambling up into carriages, doors slamming before hooves clopped down the street. 

“Get the broom, darlin’. Then take a load off yer feet in the back.” Sally didn’t need to be told twice. Hank was helping two of their female customers shrug into their coats on their way out, their minds expunged of what they saw thanks to the women in black and white. “And you. Pick up yer damned hand and get the hell outta here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finished this chapter after a day at the county fair with my kids, excruciating amounts of junk food, five hours in the sun (I have an ugly farmer's tan, SO attractive), and after using way too much data on my phone from checking my Tumblr updates while my kids went on the rides. I like all of YOUR updates better. I seriously do. *jealous*


	9. Dizzying Heights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Victor earns acceptance under the big top… from all but a few. Remy mingles with la crème de la crème, and he has a random encounter with a familiar face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve been so blocked on this story. I know this has been very Victor-centric, but it’s hard when my muses keep talking to me about his character. The tags will change, even though the rating will remain the same.
> 
> Additional Note: This update is dedicated to my buddy God_of_Death, who has supported this story and who, like me, appreciates strong coffee. And cute redheads.

Madelyne’s footsteps were quiet as she approached, but her arrival didn’t surprise Essex, despite how absorbed he’d grown in his household statements and correspondence. She sent him the mental image of the cream-colored envelope with Nur’s familiar, blue wax seal as she carried it inside after she collected the post. _It’s that time, again._

She smiled at his ragged sigh in her thoughts. She set the invitation down on the edge of his escritoire and bobbed her usual curtsey. “Tea, Doctor?”

“Gin,” he told her.

“Of course, sir.”

The order was terse, and it grew increasingly frequent of late.

_Madelyne._

“Yes, Doctor?” Her tone wasn’t cheeky, but it was close.

_The bottle._

“Of course, sir.”

Madelyne purposely sent Essex images of the landscape, of mundane, yet appealing glimpses of the sun-glazed paver stones and green grass dappled with shadows from the trees. The sky was clear, and the wind rustled through the leaves, creating the perfect afternoon for a stroll. Her employer hadn’t emerged from the house in the three weeks since his trip into town. The “good doctor” was considered a recluse by the locals, as it was, but this was out of character. Madelyne chided him for his lack of regular sunlight, until he threatened to dock her salary. The silent visions that she sent to him instead certainly spared him none of her sass. Yet she fetched the bottle of gin and a crystal tumbler, carrying it into his library on a silver tray. This, she set down on one of the end tables, within easy reach.

His cravat hung untied from his neck, and his hair was a wreck from tugging on it in frustration. Dark smudges appeared under his eyes from a lack of sleep. He wore a shirt that she had pressed for him at one point, but that how looked hopelessly wrinkled. The vest and frock coat that she selected for him still hung unworn on the peg beside his armoire.

“When will supper be ready?”

“In another twenty minutes.”

“Make sure he eats.”

“So, he shan’t expect you, then, for supper?”

“No.”

“Very good, Doctor.”

It saddened her. Remy would be so disappointed.

She found him in the ballroom, seated at the pianoforte and practicing runs. His long, dexterous fingers danced over the keys, and his posture was impeccable. Madelyne tied his hair back with a black satin ribbon for the day, and he also eschewed a vest, choosing to spend the day in his riding breeches and his shirt, which hung partly unbuttoned. He played for the enjoyment of it, smiling to himself at the notes. He radiated peace, making Madelyne wish she could remain in the ballroom and soak it up for a while longer; her duties, however, took precedence.

“That’s lovely.”

“It’s only practice,” he admitted, but his smile brightened when he saw her, and he kept playing, but more softly, as she approached him.

“You’re improving, dearie.”

“You’re too kind, _mon chere_.”

“Supper’s almost ready.” She gave him a smug, pleased look. “Your favorite.”

His eyes lit up. “Lamb stew?”

“With dumplings, yes. And an apple tart.”

“You’re too good to me, _chere_.”

“I can bring it to your room, if you’d like. Or the dining room?”

Remy’s fingers stilled on the keys, and his smile faltered. “My room? Is Nathaniel…?”

“He needs some time to complete his work. He’s occupied, dearie.”

Remy nodded, and his smile returned, but it lost some of its wattage. “I’d hate to disturb him.”

Madelyne felt a pang of sympathy. “He gives his regrets, Remy. Perhaps he’ll join you for a bit of the tart, in a bit.” Her voice was hopeful.

They both knew she was lying.

Nathaniel still ordered Remy into the library for his lessons and readings. He was growing more fluent in French and Italian, and more recently, he learned the pianoforte. Suggs, for all of his usual lack of finer instincts, turned out to be a more than adequate musician and teacher. His fingers knew the music - Remy had an unexplained, far-off memory of it, even though he had never listened to anyone play it for him, or read the sheet music before - and even Essex seemed flummoxed. Madelyne gushed over him, over his talent; that fed his desire to learn more.

“So.” Madelyne’s voice interrupted his reverie. “Would you care to dine in the -”

“My room will be fine,” he told her. “No need to make a mess of the table. Can’t see the point of standing on ceremony.”

“It’s no trouble.”

“Yes, it is.” Remy smiled at her, and the expression was soft and sad. “You do so much for us.”  
“It’s my pleasure, darling.” She returned to the kitchen to put the finishing touches on the meal, ladling the stew and dumplings carefully into the serving tureen, in case her employer changed his mind. The tart was elaborately finished, its crust carved and shaped into leafy patterns, and it smelled richly of cinnamon and cloves. Madelyne plated Remy’s portions on gold-rimmed china and added a pot of tea to the tray. At least he didn’t demand gin, she mused.

He would be curious about the invitation, once he noticed it, Madelyn realized. Remy’s curiosity was dangerous. Yet, it was refreshing, in their jaded household, for at least one of their members to appreciate a mystery.

When she returned with Remy’s supper, he gave her another of his charming smiles, and he inhaled the aromas appreciatively. “Bon appetit,” she told him.

“You’ll have to take me back to Madame Pym’s, at the rate that you keep feeding me, chere. None of my suits will fit me.”

“You cut a fine figure, and it’s a pleasure to watch you enjoy a good meal, dearie.” Madelyne felt rueful, and he picked up on her reserve, the hint of sadness just lingering below the surface.

“Is something wrong?”

“Not at all, Remy.”

He cocked his head, measuring her. “But, you’d tell me? If something was wrong?” He paused a beat. “With me? If I made a mistake-”

“No.” She shook her head firmly. “You haven’t made a mistake, dear. Trust me when I tell you that you’ve done nothing wrong. And certainly not in regard to me.”

Remy relaxed, and the spark of worry faded from his lovely eyes. “You’d never steer me wrong,” he praised. “Never sent me out the door with a crooked cravat yet.”

Madelyne snorted. “You’ve mastered how to properly wear one. Even our good doctor struggles with that, after all the years that I’ve worked for him. He’s frustrated many a groom.” But her voice was fond. She even felt Nathaniel in her head, hearing his psychic sigh of disgust. She grinned impishly.

“He still cuts a dash,” Remy argued.

“Indeed, he does,” she allowed. “Go on, now, and eat that while it’s still nice and warm.”

“Merci.”

“Of course, sweet.” She left him, but not before telling him, “Dr. Essex received an invitation that you might be interested in. It might warrant another visit to Madame Pym, after all.”

She was rewarded for this news with a pleased little smile before he tucked into his stew, and she left him to it.

*

 

Victor poured the large, wooden pails of water into the elephants’ trough. The large elephant bull, Creampuff, butted up against Victor playfully, flapping his large ears. Victor affectionately rubbed his rough forehead and made soothing noises. “Thirsty?” he asked. Creampuff bleated in the affirmative and sneaked the end of his trunk up Victor’s shirt hem, purposely ticking his stomach. “More. I’ll bring more,” Victor promised. The other elephant bulls tried to crowd him, but Victor growled in warning; they could be mercurial when they decided to act jealous of any attention given to one of them, and one such skirmish ended in one of them attempting to gore Victor with it’s wicked tusk. 

Victor was more beast than man, to most of the beasts under the big top, and he was certainly a predator. But they trusted Victor more than another biped they’d encountered. There was no artifice in Victor, and no greed, nor aggression. They had an understanding.

For the most part, the denizens of the circus thought Victor was an oaf, and a simpleton. Yet he fit in with their group of misfits, just one more lost soul who escaped somewhere, something, and someone much, much worse. Few in Nate Grey’s traveling show arrived there by choice or aspiration. Many of his performers came to him in dark of night, pursued by superstitious folk forming angry mobs. Danielle and Kurt still had nightmares, and they both shied away from the ring during the fire acts. They were the only two who never teased Victor for doing the same thing.

Nate continued to use Victor for heavy lifting, or as a prop for different acts. Tabitha still insisted on using him as a target for her knives, but over time, Victor calmed and grew accustomed to the low whistle and thump of the blades finding their marks on the spinning wheel. The blindfold helped; he never even flinched anymore, by even so much as a hair.

It helped him, somehow, that Tabitha was confident. She cajoled and teased him after each show, walking out of the ring with him, arms linked. “Smile for the crowd, ya big lug,” she’d nag under her breath while he waved and postured. She’d greet his attempts with, “But not like that. Makes you look deranged.” 

He tolerated it. Gladly. Tabitha was the only one who showed him anything resembling friendship or goodwill. Victor grew accustomed to her scent, young, fresh skin overlayed with the odd, metallic-smelling cosmetics she painted herself with every night. It comforted him, strangely soothing and at odds with her sharp voice and bossy demeanor. She mocked him, but there was no rancor in it.

Such as, “Step lively, you big goof. I’m gonna teach you to dance, you and your big, silly feet.”

Or, “Heaven help the flies that hover too close to that mouth of yours, big guy. Here, take a toothpick and do something about those choppers. They’re a disgrace.”

Or even, “Let me let down the hem of those pants. Your ankles must be freezing, and these are a lost cause. You look like my nephew every time he outgrows his baby fat.”

Always an element of teasing. Always managing to tsk under her breath. Yet, not unkind. Always at least meaning well.

Victor followed her like a lost puppy, or a huge shadow. She was a spitfire, petite, moving fluidly from years of dancing and acrobatic training. Yet, Tabitha noticed what the rest of the group missed.

Victor could be surprisingly graceful when he wanted to be. When he worked, or when he was with the animals. The big cats were mesmerized by him. It was Victor who climbed into the cages to hold the cats still whenever they needed a shot or to have their teeth or claws inspected, checking their paws for splinters. His movements were fluid whenever he swung a hammer or pail, and he climbed ladders with ease, managing the narrow foot pegs to check the tightrope and trapeze wires for tears or unraveling. When he first came, he was fumble-fingered when it came to small tasks, but Tabitha worked with him in that regard, too, training him in chores that required a more delicate touch, like cleaning her knives, or freeing her hairs that caught in the fastenings of her outfits when she put them on. Tabitha could be brusque, but she practiced patience with him.

It left Kyle baffled. “What’s she even see in ‘im?” he wondered aloud as he watched Tabitha hauling Victor away from the hay bales to make him take a much-needed bath.

Sam, sitting on a hay bale and polishing his launch helmet, shrugged his shoulders. “Got me,” he agreed. “Think she likes havin’ a poor soul like that as a hobby.”

Kyle shuddered at the implications.

The only time Victor avoided Tabitha was when she smoked her pungent cigarettes. Even the strike of the match made him skittish. 

“Big oaf’s afraid of a lil’ smoke,” Skeevy Pete jeered.

“Ain’t the smoke,” Kyle told him. That much, he knew.

Pete still heckled Victor. Tapped off ashes from his own cigars in Victor’s food when his head was turned. Tripped him up when he was carrying heavy loads. Riled up the cats while Victor cleaned their cages. Nate bellowed for him to quit it, less for Victor’s peace of mind, and more for Pete’s safety. He had no doubt in his mind that Victor could flatten him with one swipe of his beefy hand. Pete still wore the scar from their first meeting. Growing a beard didn’t hide it.

When a man nursed a grudge, it festered. Didn’t leave room for anything else.

Kyle almost felt sorry for the big, dumb brute, but he knew he wouldn’t likely understand any effort to tell him to watch his step.

For some reason, a strange frisson of dread ran through him when he watched Tabitha reach up and ruffle his long, shaggy blond hair. The gesture was affectionate. Seemingly harmless.

Kyle didn’t know why it worried him so much to watch the two of them grow so attached. Why he felt things were so tenuous when he watched them together.

Like watching the most brightly colored leaves falling from the tree. They could do nothing but fall.

*

Nathaniel didn’t refuse Madelyne’s request to take Remy into town to do her shopping, and to outfit him with a new suit for Nur’s upcoming ball. 

“I’ve no patience for sartorial nonsense. Charge it to my account. Make sure he’s dressed to the nines, Miss Pryor.”

“Would I do any less?” she asked with a cock of her head and her hand on her hip.

“Don’t keep him out too late. I don’t want him to miss his French lesson. Don’t keep me waiting.”

_You well know the consequences._

The voice infiltrated her thoughts, smooth, but tinged with menace. Evoking past punishment.

“I won’t give you time to miss him,” she promised, curtsying before she swept out of the library. She left him to his cognac and the roaring fire, knowing that he still gripped the invitation in his hand, contemplating it.

They needed a history for Remy, something to tell anyone curious enough to wonder how Remy came to live under his roof and to enjoy his generosity. They would find him beautiful. Charming. Fascinatingly intelligent and polite. A mystery. He had no family or connections. No employment.

The truth could ruin Nathaniel.

He shortened the village’s memory with money, donating frequently to their coffers, even to the church. The priest overlooked Nathaniel’s agnosticism and accepted his tithes, telling him he would pray for his salvation. His robes were made of spotless, matchless silks, a development that the congregation didn’t fail to mention, with frequent opportunities and unchecked fascination.

Remy was such a change from Victor… Nathaniel shuddered with remembered disgust and frustration. Then, he faced his other problem, one that could compromise his secret just as easily.

Victor was alive. Running amok in the outside world, amongst civilized people. Around the elderly, and small, vulnerable children. And he saw Remy. For the first time in longer than he could remember, Nathaniel Essex felt true fear of losing what was most precious to him.

Worse, unlike Remy, Victor wasn’t susceptible to his psychic influence. Essex broke Victor’s will, in the beginning, with physical punishments. They were direct and simple to understand, and certainly how Essex chose to get his point across to his creature. Essex had but to project the slightest flicker of disappointment, and Remy would adjust his performance accordingly. Immediately. It only took a tiny, subtle push. What anyone else would have construed as devotion was, more accurately, obedience. Remy’s eyes followed Essex in and out of every room, tracking his gestures and his words as they fell from his lips. He was Remy’s entire world.

Yet, when he introduced him at the ball, to society, Essex would broaden it, and in doing so, compromise his status as Remy’s sole focus. The ball, and its attendants, would provide a _distraction_.

Frost, Gallio and Shaw would be there. That fact didn’t escape him. There were so many reasons to decline.

He ignored all of them as he penned a reply on the small, discreet return card. He would give it to Madelyne to send out in the morning’s post when she returned.

*

“Maddie?”

“Yes, duckie?”

“Why are they like that?”

“Why are… oh.” She followed his gaze out the window of the coach, and noticed a small family of urchins huddled on the curb, hands and faces grubby and hair hanging lank and unwashed. “Those are lost souls, dearie.”

“Lost?” His brow wrinkled in concern.

“Undesirables. That’s what happens when you’ve been cast out. Or if you don’t have a family.”

“They look like a family,” Remy corrected her. 

“No one provided for them, Remy.” Madelyne saw what Remy did but had different feelings on the subject. “No one protected them from the world’s ills. And now, they will be consumed by them.” The woman was thin and haggard, but her children’s eyes were still bright. Remy listened to the smaller child, a little girl, begin to sing a song in a sweet, clear voice. A man pushing a cart of flowers paused to listen and dropped a coin into her brother’s cup.

“But, why? Why won’t anyone help them? Or protect them?”

“Because it doesn’t suit them to do so,” she mused. “Don’t trouble yourself, darling. You’ll never want for anything. Don’t you realize that? Cheer up. We’ve shopping to finish.” He returned her bright smile hesitantly, but his eyes flitted back toward the curb as they pulled away from it. He watched the children and mother grow smaller until he could no longer see them, but the remnant of that sight would linger with him.

Madam Janet was resplendent in green satin when they arrived at the boutique. Kitty trotted out bolt after bolt of fine fabric, velvets, brocades, moire satins, taffetas, linens and wools. Remy grew lost in the sensations of touching each, of feeling Kitty lift each one against him to look at it against his skin and hair, letting Madelyne and Janet judge whether it suited him. Janet had him try on a deep red and gold brocade vest.

“Just something I cobbled together. I couldn’t resist the fabric. I was thinking of those lovely eyes of yours when I chose it,” she admitted. “Oh, that’s nice. I think that will do nicely.”

“It certainly will,” Kitty agreed as she touched the vest, then laid her palm flat on Remy’s chest to better caress the fabric. Her smile was knowing, but Remy didn’t see her proximity, or her boldness, as a problem.

Madelyn had no such qualms about letting her know that she misstepped.

_Stop that._

The psychic command had the force of a slap. Kitty removed her hand quickly and backed off, murmuring something about needing to clean up the sewing room. She turned to Madelyne, chastened, cheeks glowing a florid pink. Madelyne’s smile was brittle and failed to reach her eyes. Kitty rushed off, trailing the end of a bolt of blue satin.

“Goodness, what’s gotten into that child?” Janet wondered. She tsked, but she was all business as she turned back to Remy. “So. The vest, then?”

“C’est magnifique,” he told her, and Remy took her hand and kissed it. “Thank you for once again using your impeccable taste to make me presentable, madame.” Janet blushed and preened, and she bustled about the shop, taking his order for a suit, and she brought out a few selections of garments that she’d already constructed and fit to his measurements. He was such a pleasure to dress, not unlike a life-sized doll.

If only she realized how close that was to the truth.

*

They left the boutique and browsed the street market, stopping at various stalls and carts to pick up fresh produce and spices. Madelyne haggled with each vendor, bartering them down on every item, despite her fat purse. Remy marveled at her ability to bicker and get her way. 

“You _can’t_ want that much for these apples! This one has a hole in it! If I bite into it, I’ll find the other half of the worm! You should be ashamed to call this edible!”

“I stand by their quality, madam!”

“Then, what does that say about _you_? I can’t make my master’s pies with these. He’d surely fire me for being a fool.”

And around and around they went, with each purchase, until Madelyne returned to their coach with armloads of bags, some of which he carried for her without urging. They enjoyed the sunshine and light breeze, dried leaves crackling under their feet. Remy was grateful for the cooler temperature; his clothing was well-fitted but heavy, and he felt stifled by all of the various buttons, plackets and fasteners, the snug waistband and cuffs, the almost oppressive ruffles falling in a jabot at his throat. The clothing, despite its careful design, seemed to trap him. He had vague, lush memories of being bare and relaxed. He couldn’t remember the context or the timeframe. He just remembered the fleeting freedom of it.

Sometimes, he still had snatches of memory, just before he fully woke each day. Some of them were pleasant enough. Tender, private touches. A sense of floating, and of darkness and quiet where nothing bad could touch him. Others flung him up from the pillows, screaming raggedly and bringing Madelyne running to light him a sconce and to hold him close, rocking him and crooning comfortingly into his hair. Fire. Smoke. Crumbling rubble. So much pain. And a face twisted in rage.

Madelyne couldn’t wipe them fully from his mind, no matter how hard she tried. So, she provided him with distractions. Deflected his questions. It was better that way, sparing him the enormity of the horrors that spawned him. 

So, they strolled. The locals chatted with Madelyne, and they stared at Remy, admiring his fine, tall figure and handsome looks. He still wore the dark spectacles to obscure his eyes, but that didn’t diminish his charm. 

Madelyne purchased a sweet bun for Remy and tucked it into a cloth handkerchief for him to catch the crumbs. “You look famished.”

“Merci, chere.”

“Go. Sit for a bit while I get some peas. Go ahead and eat that while it’s still nice and warm. It shouldn’t spoil your dinner.” Remy ate the bun in hungry bites, using the handkerchief to wipe his fingers and to dust off the crumbs that landed on his fine jacket. He watched the crowd mill around him and breathed in the myriad scents of foods and liquors, sharp perfumes and flowers, pungent spices and exotic oils. A few passerby stared at him, murmuring. They noticed the coach in the street with the Essex coat of arms’ insignia on the door and watched him climb out of it earlier. His clothing spoke of money and privilege. His manners spoke of fine breeding.

To some, he was a prime target.

“Hey, mister. Can you spare a little something?” Two boys in careworn clothing and untrimmed hair approached, looking old enough for their parents to pull them out of school for crude work but too young to use a razor. “We might like to buy one of those buns, too.”

He eyed them with curiosity. “Why aren’t you in the classroom, cracking open your books?”

They elbowed each other, and their smiles grew snide. Remy recoiled at the change in their demeanor.  “We’d have an easier time reading if we weren’t so hungry, mister.”

“Can’t you spare us a little something?”

“I’m afraid I can’t. I’m not the one holding the purse.”

“A fancy gent like you’d gotta have some coin on you, somewhere,” another voice intruded, and this time, the owner was older than the other two, lean, with hard eyes and large, rough hands. “Surely you can spare a little something for me and my boys? Are you that mean, sir?”

“No. I just don’t have any change to spare.”

“Then, maybe you could spare that fine coat. Looks awfully warm.”

“No. But maybe you’d like the rest of my bun, if you’re so hungry.”

“If you give me that coat, I can buy my own,” he corrected Remy. “That’ll work out better for all of us.”

“That won’t work out very well for me.”

“Well, neither will this.” The boy glanced around and pulled open one side of his vest, revealing a small leather scabbard. The handle of a mean looking knife protruded up from it, and the boy’s eyes were flinty, promising harm. “So. Your coat.”

Remy’s brows drew together.”

“Come on, now.” He reached for Remy’s wrist, trying to jerk him up. No one on the street tried to stop him, but there were more murmurs. Sometimes, entertainment could be found without paying a dime.

The tactical memory of being grabbed, of someone seizing Remy’s wrist, triggered a spark within him. Everything around him seemed to go dark. Remy smelled smoke and saw flames flickering where he should have only seen homely carts and vendors in dirty aprons. His heartbeat and pulse spiked and he tasted metal.

Gnashing teeth. Agonized roars filling his ears. Betrayal… such flagrant betrayal. Gut-clenching fear. 

“Don’t… don’t touch me!”

“Then just hand it over, and we can-”

Remy’s long fingers reached for the handle of the knife, not to take it from him, but to release the burgeoning energies brewing inside of him. Remy charged the knife with the tap of his fingertip, transferring crimson, crackling energy into the blade. The young ruffian’s eyes widened in disbelief.

“Oy! Whaddya think you’re-”

The blast blew him back off of his feet with a yelp. 

The murmurings grew into gasps and sharp cries. 

“It was magic!”

“He threw him back like he was nothing!”

“It looked like fire coming from his hand!”

“He’s a DAEMON!”

Madelyne paused in her dickering, several yards away, as she felt the first ripple of Remy’s terror, unfettered and sharp. Suddenly, she, too, found herself immersed in the old memories of Victor, when he first wandered free of the tower, before the fire. And this time, again, she would have to perform damage control. 

_It’s all right, darling, calm down! I’m here for you._ Her thoughts swept over Remy in a rush of worry and concern, but it grounded him. It didn’t, however, halt the threat of the three young men. The youngest of them shoved Remy, heedless of what he did only moments before, and of the potential threat.

“I’m not afraid of you! I’ll send you back into the pit!”

“Johnny, no! You saw! He’s of the Devil himself!”

But the boy shoved at Remy, jostling him and making him trip off the curb. His dark glasses flew off, landing on the cobblestones and revealing his wide eyes.

Red on black. Fire and smoke. The Devil’s handiwork.

“LOOK!”

Remy backed up, eyes flitting around for an escape route, or a place to hide away from several sets of accusing eyes and the rising shouts. 

*

Logan emerged from Hank’s place, mouth still recovering from his friend’s excuse for tea, and the sounds of shouting assailed his ears. “What the flamin’...?” His brows beetled together as he watched a small crowd gathering in the street, and saw a petite, striking redhead in maid’s garb trying to force her way through it. That got his hackles up enough as it was, but he smelled her anger and frustration, as well as the pong of fear from the crowd. “This ain’t an afternoon social,” he muttered aloud as he strode into the thick of it.

Logan caught up to the woman and lightly gripped her shoulder. She spun on him, glaring and intolerant of the interruption. “Let go of me, you daft grunt!”

“What’s going on, darlin’?” he demanded.

“I need to get to my charge, they’re trying to hurt him, and he was only defending himself -” She slapped away his hand and tried again to push through the crowd, making precious little progress. “REMY!”

The name sparked a memory for Logan, but he shook it off, deciding that the crowd’s presence and the epithets flying through the air could only result from ill will and poor judgment. Logan was short, but he could plow through a crowd. Where Madelyne tried to weave her way through, Logan chose to shove, a much more effective method. He ignored the curses as he pushed and kicked the people out of his way like so much trash.

“Hey, what do you think you’re- OWWW!” He backhanded the brute in front of him who tried to get in his way.

“Don’t worry about what I’m thinkin’, bub!” he shot back. His knuckles smarted from the impact, but the man’s split lip tilted the encounter in Logan’s favor. “Get outta the way, damn it!” Madelyne followed close on Logan’s heels, and Logan took matters into his own hands, gripping her shoulders and tugging her close to him as he hurried to the front of the crowd.

The younger boy had Remy’s glasses. “He was hiding behind these!” he taunted, holding them aloft. He teased Remy with them, but Remy snatched them from his grip. It was too late for putting them back on to do any good. 

“Leave him alone, you little bastard!” Madelyne cried as she surged forward and slapped him soundly for his impudence. “Do you realize what you’ve done!”

“She hit me!” he cried, holding his cheek and pointing to her.

“She’s with him!” the older youth cried, pointing accusingly at Madelyne. “Look! A redhead! Both of them!”

“Oh, rubbish,” Madelyne muttered. “I’ve had enough of this.”

Logan recognized Remy with one look, and his heart skipped. Out in the open, during daylight, he could better appreciate the sight of him, perfect, rosy-fair skin, chestnut hair with auburn glints, and those compelling, amazing eyes. But they were terrified, and his mouth gaped in fear, his hands trembling. Logan smelled the telltale odor of smoke and electricity in the air, and he remembered the night at Harry’s tavern. Another angry crowd. A severed limb and spilled blood mingling with the stench of alcohol and regret.

“You take trouble with ya wherever ya go, huh, sweetheart?” Logan told him.

“I didn’t do anything, I… I didn’t mean-”

“Yeah, yeah.” 

The boy who grabbed Remy’s glasses told him, “He’s a daemon! He shot fire from his hand!”

“Look what he did!” the older boy added, motioning to his ruined vest and the reddened skin revealed by the tear. 

“Shouldn’t you be in school?” Logan prodded, raising one shaggy dark brow. “Leave him alone!”

“But you didn’t see what he did!’

“There’s nothing to see,” Madelyne told him. And for a few moments, her eyes glowed an eerie, greenish gold. Within moments, a hush descended over the crowd. Her expression looked pained. Logan scowled as he watched her. She smelled different. He felt the pulse of energy radiating from her, and it sent his hackles right back up again.

“Darlin’, what the hell are ya doin’?”

“Never you mind,” she hissed. “Remy, come with me! NOW!”

“Maddie, I didn’t mean to-”

“I know, darling. It’s all right. We need to get you home.” She turned to Logan, and she said “I appreciate your help, and I’m sorry for being a bit short with you, but I need you to cover us.”

“Meaning?”

“Don’t let them follow us.” She winced and sagged from the effort, and Logan looked out at the crowd. All of them… they were _frozen._ Expressions fixed, limbs hovering in the air in whatever action they were in before they were struck.

Before the titian-haired minx before him took hold of them. 

“The next time we run into each other, sir,” she mentioned as she gathered Remy close to her, “would you mind telling me how you’re still able to move? And to speak to me?”

“Can’t figure out why I wouldn’t, darlin’, unless there’s something you wanna tell me, too?”

She sighed and shook her head. “There isn’t enough ale in the world that will make any of this make sense to you.”

Logan decided at that moment that he liked her very much, indeed.

She hurried off with Remy, hand wrapped firmly around his elbow, but he paused a moment and turned back to Logan. “I didn’t mean to do anything wrong. He… he wouldn’t let go of me.” His face was earnest and apologetic. “I don’t mean to be troublesome.”

“You aren’t,” Madelyne insisted as she stared Logan down, just daring him to argue the point or re-assert that Remy was trouble. Logan knew better than to open his mouth and make a redhead snap his head off. He’d learned as much with Rose, bless her soul. But Madelyne’s expression softened as she stared up into Remy’s face. “You truly aren’t, lovey, but we need to go.”

She tried to pull him along again, but Remy planted himself, lifted his chin, and told him, “I can’t help how I am.”

“No. I don’t suppose ya can, kid.”

Remy frowned. “I’m twenty, sir,” he said.

Essex planted the age in Remy’s mind, along with other fabrications, in case anyone grew curious. Remy believed them most vehemently.

“Well, beggin’ yer pardon, then, bub.”

Madelyne’s lips quirked. “Oh, all right, then, that’s enough. Come along, dearie. Good afternoon to you, _sir_.” Her voice held a hoity-toity note.

“Logan,” he called after them as they strode off. Within moments, they returned to the coach, and Logan listened to the retreating hoofbeats. He saw red-on-black eyes peer out from the window before the curtains inside shuttered Logan’s view. “Blast…”

The crowd shook themselves from their stupor and glanced around quickly, recovering themselves. Their faces looked dazed. Flummoxed. Logan saw the young man with the torn vest rubbing absently at his chest, scowling.

“What the…?” he muttered as he stared down at himself. “Hey! Where’s my knife?”

Madelyne needn’t have worried, Logan realized. She covered her tracks just fine all by herself.

He wouldn’t be able to get the two attractive, strange people out of his mind for the rest of the day. “Remy,” Logan murmured to himself as he walked down the road leading out of town, toward the graveyard. Almost too simple a name for such an exceptional man. Logan felt an odd rush of protectiveness for him, in hindsight.

*

“That man was charging far too much for those peas,” Madelyne swore as the coach rocked beneath them. Remy still looked shaken and discomfited on the opposite bench. “Next time, you have to be more careful, dearie. What happened?” She knew she could pry it out of his thoughts, but he was radiating shame and embarrassment. He deserved the sanctity of his thoughts, of his emotions.

“He grabbed me. It was… frightening. I thought he would hurt me. I saw…”

He stopped. Madelyne felt a slight chill.

“What did you see, Remy?”

“I saw things. Things that weren’t… that couldn’t be there. Just for a moment. Fire. Smoke. A face.”

Panic shivered through Madelyne’s insides. “A… face, you say?”

“With frightening teeth. Angry. Someone who- who hate me,” he claimed.

Her face softened. “Oh, darling, no one hates you!”

“The man I saw did. And the one grabbing me wanted to hurt me. He was going to steal my coat.”

“No, I suppose you couldn’t let that happen, dear. It was your right to defend yourself. We really need to think about how better to do that, next time.” She would take that up with the good doctor at the first opportunity. He wouldn’t be pleased to hear about the events of Remy’s outing.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted. Madelyne saw his eyes shimmer, and he turned his face toward the other open window, dashing at one eye with a gloved finger. 

“Dearie, look at me. Remy. Listen to me.” She leaned across the gap and took his hand, squeezing it. “Remy. That wasn’t your fault. That young scamp laid his hands on you. You were trying to protect yourself. But, do understand that not everyone will see what you can do as a gift. They have small  minds. Do you understand me, sweet? You can’t let them see that again.”

“All right.”

“Dr. Essex may not want you to make excursions into town for a while,” she warned.

That made him sigh, and she watched those proud, elegantly broad shoulders sag in defeat. “I suppose he won’t.”

But she sensed a bit of rebellion coloring his thoughts. She squeezed his hand again before releasing him and settling back into the cushioned seat, relaxing for the rest of the ride.

She thought of the grizzled older man, with his brash voice and hard manner, but she also remembered the kindness in his eyes. She couldn’t read his thoughts. 

Interesting, indeed.

*

It was Tabitha’s turn to go up on the trapeze that night, and Victor’s stomach was full of nervous jitters. Tabitha readied herself at her dressing table in front of the dirty mirror, painting her lips bright, stark red. She noticed Victor hovering in the doorway and she stuck out her tongue at his reflection, the picture of impudence. “Will you stop staring holes into the back of my head, you big oaf! What’s the matter with you tonight?”

He stammered uncomfortably, pointing skyward. “Up. You. Go up. Too high.”

Tabitha chuckled. “Oh, you! What’s wrong with that? I’ve certainly done it enough. You’ve checked the rigging and the wires, right? Just like Gibny showed you?”

He nodded solemnly. But he told her, “Don’t. Don’t. Fall. Too high. Get… hurt.”

He tried not to convey that he was terrified at the possibility. He remembered how the height from the tower window used to frighten him, sometimes. How it made his head spin to see the bushes and trees look so small, from so high up.

“I’ve practiced this routine so many times, I could do it in my sleep, buddy boy,” Tabitha assured him. She finished patting on the makeup and adjusted the feathers on her costume, just as skimpy as the rest of them. This one didn’t have any skirt or pantaloons, so it showed off her fair, smooth skin in abundance. She wore stockings made of black netting that boggled Victor’s eyes, a mockery of the hosiery he usually saw fine ladies wear. Tabitha stood and turned to fully face him, and his mouth went dry at the sight of her. His body had a visceral, sharp reaction to the sight of her curves hugged by the stays and gleaming blue satin. Maribou feathers fluffed out in a short bustle over her derriere. “Quit yer fussing and wish me luck.”

“Luck… good. Luck.”

“Close enough,” she chuckled. Tabitha reached up and patted his cheek fondly. “Shake a leg. Let me by, Vic.”

She brushed past him, and he smelled the strange scent of her cosmetics and something faint and powdery that almost made him sneeze. Her touch was gentle. Victor touched his cheek, trying to capture the fleeting caress as she left him. Tenderness was such a rare occurrence in his life. He thought fleetingly of Madelyne, similarly gentle, even when she scolded him. 

He listened to Nate’s spiel as he removed his top hat and shouted to the crowd. “Here she is again, ladies and gents! The Fabulous, Flying Tabitha on her trapeze of daring! Give her a hand!” The crowd yelled, clapped and whistled as Tabitha stepped into the spotlight. The lights set her blonde hair aflame; the makeup, which looked garish and overdone in normal light, transformed her into a woman who was beautiful and mysterious, highlighting her large blue eyes and elegant bone structure. She profiled and sashayed in a wide arc within the ring, hips swishing to the music that filled the tent.

Victor’s eyes remained fixed on Tabitha as she sashayed and preened, and she went to the dangling wire, stepping onto the peg that was anchored to the end of it. The wire slowly rose, lifting her off the ground. Victor cringed, breath catching in his throat as he watched her. _Please don’t fall. Please, don’t let go._ Gibny approached, sidling up to him and gently elbowing him, giving Victor plenty of chance to hear him coming. He knew the beast was more jittery than usual.

“S’fine. She’s fine, big fella. Look at her, she’s having a good time up there.”

“Too high,” Victor shared. “Scares. Me.”

“But doesn’t she look sharp? Cuts quite the dash, doesn’t she? And she makes it look easy.”

Tabitha began her routine, setting the wire spinning as her legs whipped out. Her body arced and whipped and twirled, and the lights made the rhinestones on her costume glitter and catch the eye. The audience ooh’ed and aah’ed, holding their collective breath. Tabitha flipped herself upside down and spun around in the opposite direction, this time holding on with only one arm. The wire continued its sinuous spin, and her smile was dazzling. Brilliant. She was in her element. She rotated and twirled, high above the breathless crowd. Victor’s gaze was rapt, refusing to be unbroken. She did impossible looking backbends and several more flips suspended in the air, until the wire retracted even further, pulling her higher, until she reached the trapeze rod high up in the eaves of the tent. She nimbly transferred over onto the rod, letting the vertical wire fall aside, and she nimbly began to swing in a smooth, pendulous arc. Her legs jack-knifed neatly, perfectly straight, feet together, and Victor watched Danielle at the other end of the wire, standing at the ready with the trapeze bar on that side, waiting for Tabitha’s signal to swing it out to the center. Tabitha flipped mid-air in a perfect somersault, transferring to the other bar, to mad applause! Victor’s heart stuttered. He broke out in cold sweat and rocked restlessly on his feet.

“Take it easy, oaf,” Gibney muttered. “She’s fine. Look at her fly. Pretty as a bird, isn’t she?” His tone was admiring and fond. 

Victor growled low in his throat. Gibny only laughed, though, and he clapped Victor on the back.

They watched her finish for several more nail-biting minutes, before Tabitha transferred herself back onto the vertical wire and slowly, neatly spun her way back down on the anchor. She profiled when she reached the ground, saluting the crowd and the ringmaster and blowing kisses. She waved as she pranced out of the ring and out of the spotlight. The crowd went mad.

Victor felt dizzy with relief. His heartbeat finally slowed to its customary trot as she darted off to the changing area. 

He caught sight of Pete staring after her, too. His expression was smug and calculating.

Anger welled in Victor’s gut. He snarled and growled again. Gibny noticed and clutched Victor’s wrist, noticing that the talons over his fingertips extended and the tension in his muscles drew all of them taut as a whip. In an instant, Victor’s face changed from admiration to a rictus of jealous rage. “Take it easy now, man,” Kyle warned. “Easy. There’s no need for that. He’s only lookin’.”

Victor wanted to argue, but he lacked the words for what he knew. 

He couldn’t trust Pete.


End file.
